LAKE   FOREST 
COLLEGE 


GIFT  or 


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in  2007  with  funding  from 

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THE  BROSS  LIBRARY 

VOLUME  X 


THE  BROSS  LIBRARY 


THE  BIBLE;  ITS  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE 

Rev.  Marcus  Dods,  D.D. 

THE  BIBLE  OF  NATURE.  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  M.A. 

THE  RELIGIONS  OF  MODERN  SYRIA  AND 

PALESTINE.  Frederick  J.  Bliss:  Ph.D. 

THE  SOURCES  OF  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT 

Josiah  Royce 

THE  WILL  TO  FREEDOM,  or  the  Gospel  of 
Nietsche  and  the  Gospel  of  Christ 

Rev.  John  Neville  Figgis,  D.D. 

FAITH  JUSTIFIED  BY  PROGRESS 

H.  W.  Wright,  Ph.D. 
BU3LE  AND  SPADE 

John  P.  Peters,  Ph.D.,  Sc.D.,  D.D. 

BROSS  PRIZE  VOLUMES 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

James  Orr,  D.D. 

THE  MYTHICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE 
GOSPELS.     Rev.  Thomas  James  Thorburn,  D.D. 


THE  BROS&  LECTURES    .    .    1921 


BIBLE  AND  SPADE 


LECTURES    DELIVERED    BEFORE 

LAKE  FOREST  COLLEGE 

ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF  THE  LATE 

WILLIAM   BROSS 

BY 

REV.  JOHN  P.  PETERS,  Ph.D.,  Sc.D.,  D.D. 

RECTOR   EMERITUS  OF  ST.  MICBAEl/s  CHURCH,  NEW   TORE,  PROFESSOR  OF 

HEW   TESTAMENT   LANODAGE  AND   LITERATURE   IN 

THE  UNIVERSITT  OF  TBI  SOUTH 


•      i    »    ••    •      •  • 


»  *  .  >     . 


•  » 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
NEW    YORK     ....      1922 


Copyright,  1922,  bt 
THE  TRUSTEES  OF  LAKE  FOBEST  UNIVERSITY 


Published  January,  1922 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  SCRIBNER  PRESS 

NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 


THE  BROSS  FOUNDATION 

The  Bross  Lectures  are  an  outgrowth  of  a  fund  es- 
tablished in  1879  by  the  late  William  Bross,  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  Illinois  from  1866  to  1870.  Desiring  some 
memorial  of  his  son,  Nathaniel  Bross,  who  died  in 
1856,  Mr.  Bross  entered  into  an  agreement  with  the 
"Trustees  of  Lake  Forest  University,"  whereby  there 
was  finally  transferred  to  them  the  sum  of  forty  thou- 
sand dollars,  the  income  of  which  was  to  accumulate 
in  perpetuity  for  successive  periods  of  ten  years,  the 
accumulations  of  one  decade  to  be  spent  in  the  follow- 
ing decade,  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  the  best 
books  or  treatises  "on  the  connection,  relation,  and 
mutual  bearing  of  any  practical  science,  the  history  of 
our  race,  or  the  facts  in  any  department  of  knowledge, 
with  and  upon  the  Christian  Religion."  The  object 
of  the  donor  was  to  "call  out  the  best  efforts  of  the 
highest  talent  and  the  ripest  scholarship  of  the  world 
to  illustrate  from  science,  or  from  any  department  of 
knowledge,  and  to  demonstrate  the  divine  origin  and 
the  authority  of  the  Christian  Scriptures;  and,  further, 
to  show  how  both  science  and  revelation  coincide  and 
prove  the  existence,  the  providence,  or  any  or  all  of 
the  attributes  of  the  only  living  and  true  God,  'infinite, 
eternal,  and  unchangeable  in  His  being,  wisdom,  power, 
holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth.'" 

v 

468656 


vi  T he  Bross  Foundation 

The  gift  contemplated  in  the  original  agreement  of 
1879  was  finally  consummated  in  1890.  The  first 
decade  of  the  accumulation  of  interest  having  closed 
in  1900,  the  Trustees  of  the  Bross  Fund  began  at  this 
time  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the  deed  of  gift. 
It  was  determined  to  give  the  general  title  of  "The 
Bross  Library"  to  the  series  of  books  purchased  and 
published  with  the  proceeds  of  the  Bross  Fund.  In 
accordance  with  the  express  wish  of  the  donor,  that 
the  "Evidences  of  Christianity "  of  his  "very  dear 
friend  and  teacher,  Mark  Hopkins,  D.D.,"  be  pur- 
chased and  "ever  numbered  and  known  as  No.  1  of 
the  series,"  the  Trustees  secured  the  copyright  of  this 
work,  which  has  been  republished  in  a  presentation 
edition  as  Volume  I  of  the  Bross  Library. 

The  trust  agreement  prescribed  two  methods  by 
which  the  production  of  books  and  treatises  of  the  na- 
ture contemplated  by  the  donor  was  to  be  stimulated: 

1.  The  Trustees  were  empowered  to  offer  one  or 
more  prizes  during  each  decade,  the  competition  for 
which  was  to  be  thrown  open  to  "the  scientific  men, 
the  Christian  philosophers  and  historians  of  all  na- 
tions." In  accordance  with  this  provision,  a  prize  of 
$6,000  was  offered  in  1902  for  the  best  book  fulfilling 
the  conditions  of  the  deed  of  gift,  the  competing  manu- 
scripts to  be  presented  on  or  before  June  1,  1905.  The 
prize  was  awarded  to  the  Reverend  James  Orr,  D.D., 
Professor  of  Apologetics  and  Systematic  Theology  in 
the  United  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow,  for  his 
treatise  on  "The  Problem  of  the  Old  Testament," 
which  was  published  in  1906  as  Volume  III  of  the  Bross 


The  Bross  Foundation  vii 

Library.  The  second  decennial  prize  of  $6,000  was 
awarded  in  1915  to  the  Reverend  Thomas  James 
Thorburn,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Hastings,  England,  for  his 
book  entitled  "The  Mythical  Interpretation  of  the 
Gospels,"  which  has  been  published  as  Volume  VII  of 
the  Bross  Library.  The  announcement  of  the  condi- 
tions may  be  obtained  from  the  President  of  Lake 
Forest  College. 

2.  The  Trustees  were  also  empowered  to  "select  and 
designate  any  particular  scientific  man  or  Christian 
philosopher  and  the  subject  on  which  he  shall  write,' ' 
and  to  "agree  with  him  as  to  the  sum  he  shall  receive 
for  the  book  or  treatise  to  be  written."  Under  this 
provision  the  Trustees  have,  from  time  to  time,  invited 
eminent  scholars  to  deliver  courses  of  lectures  before 
Lake  Forest  College,  such  courses  to  be  subsequently 
published  as  volumes  in  the  Bross  Library.  The  first 
course  of  lectures,  on  "Obligatory  Morality,"  was  de- 
livered in  May,  1903,  by  the  Reverend  Francis  Landey 
Patton,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  Princeton  Theologi- 
cal Seminary.  The  copyright  of  the  lectures  is  now 
the  property  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Bross  Fund.  The 
second  course  of  lectures,  on  "The  Bible:  Its  Origin 
and  Nature,"  was  delivered  in  May,  1904,  by  the 
Reverend  Marcus  Dods,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Exegetical 
Theology  in  New  College,  Edinburgh.  These  lectures 
were  published  in  1905  as  Volume  II  of  the  Bross  Li- 
brary. The  third  course  of  lectures,  on  "The  Bible  of 
Nature,"  was  delivered  in  September  and  October,  1907, 
by  Mr.  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  M.A.,  Regius  Professor  of 
Natural  History  in  the  University  of  Aberdeen.    These 


viii  The  Bross  Foundation 

lectures  were  published  in  1908  as  Volume  IV  of  the 
Bross  Library.  The  fourth  course  of  lectures,  on  "The 
Religions  of  Modern  Syria  and  Palestine,' '  was  delivered 
in  November  and  December,  1908.  by  Frederick  Jones 
Bliss,  Ph.D.,  of  Beirut,  Syria.  These  lectures  are  pub- 
lished as  Volume  V  of  the  Bross  Library.  The  fifth 
course  of  lectures,  on  "The  Sources  of  Religious  In- 
sight," was  delivered  November  13  to  19,  1911,  by 
Professor  Josiah  Royce,  Ph.D.,  of  Harvard  University. 
These  lectures  are  embodied  in  the  sixth  volume. 
Volume  VII,  "The  Mythical  Interpretation  of  the 
Gospels,"  by  the  Reverend  Thomas  James  Thorburn, 
D.D.,  was  published  in  1915.  The  seventh  course  of 
lectures,  on  "The  Will  to  Freedom,"  was  delivered  in 
May,  1915,  by  the  Reverend  John  Neville  Figgis,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  of  the  House  of  the  Resurrection,  Mirfield, 
England,  and  published  as  Volume  VIII  of  the  series. 
In  1916,  Professor  Henry  Wilkes  Wright,  of  Lake 
Forest  College,  delivered  the  next  course  of  lectures  on 
"  Faith  Justified  by  Progress."  These  lectures  are  em- 
bodied in  Volume  IX.  The  present  volume  is  com- 
prised of  the  lectures  delivered  April  4  to  9,  1921,  by 
the  Reverend  John  P.  Peters,  Ph.D.,  of  Sewanee, 
Tennessee. 

HERBERT  McCOMB  MOORE, 
President  of  Lake  Forest  University, 

Lake  Forest,  Illinois, 
November,  1921. 


SUMMARY  OF  CONTENTS 


THE  ANCESTRY  OF  THE  HEBREWS 

PAOB 

Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  Book  of  Ruth — Revolt  against 
the  Bible  as  taught — Present  reaction  toward  traditional 
views — Truth  for  truth's  sake — Genesis,  a  treasure-house 
of  ancient  lore — First  volume  of  Genesis — In  seven  chap- 
ters equalling  the  seven  days  of  creation — The  second 
volume — Five  chapters — Twelve,  the  total  number,  equals 
the  twelve  tribes— Arabian  theory  of  Semitic  origins — 
Contradicted  by  linguistics — The  Semitic  world  in  the 
fourth  millennium  B.  C. — The  Sumerians  of  southern 
Babylonia — Semites  from  the  north  conquer  and  Semitize 
Babylonia — Semites  supplant  troglodytes  in  Palestine, 
2500  B.  C. — First  Indo-European  invasion — The  horse 
and  the  Hyksos — Egyptian  conquest  of  Palestine  and 
Syria — Tel  el-Amarna  tablets — Civilized  lands  of  the 
copper  age — Relation  of  Palestine  to  Egypt — Egyptian 
tomb  at  Shechem — Mosaism  and  Egypt — The  great  Hit- 
tite  invasion — First  appearances  of  the  Hebrews,  an 
Aramaean  stock — Ikhnaton  the  reformer — Abd-Khiba, 
king  of  Jerusalem — The  treaty  with  the  Hittites — 
Pharaoh  of  the  oppression — First  mention  of  Israel — 
Israelite  tradition  of  the  date  of  the  Exodus — Ancient 
Hebrew  and  Babylonian  method  of  dating — Inroads  of 
barbarians  and  the  downfall  of  the  empires — The  Israelite 
occupation  of  Canaan — Armenia,  home-land  of  the  Ara- 
maeans— Their  downward  movement  traced  from  in- 
scriptions^— Ethnological  identification  of  Armenian  and 
Aramaean 1-47 


X  Summary  of  Contents 

II 
COSMOGONY  AND  FOLK-LORE 

PAGB 

Discovery  of  Flood  story  in  Assyria — Babylonianisms — 
Error  of  translation  in  Genesis  I. — The  evidence  of  natural 
history — Missionaries  solve  the  problem — Word  of  God — 
Brings  a  world  out  of  chaos— Cosmogony  of  Genesis — 
Other  Hebrew  forms — Compared  with  Babylonian  cos- 
mogonies— Eden  and  the  Temptation — The  sex  element 
— Babylonian  sex  liturgies — Hebrew  revolt  against  las- 
civious cult — Antediluvian  heroes — Hebrew  and  Baby- 
lonian common  good — The  plain  of  Shinar — The  tower  of 
Babel — Where  was  it? — The  ruins  of  Borsippa — An  in- 
scription of  Nebuchadrezzar — The  ziggurat  of  Borsippa 
— Abraham  and  Amraphel — The  laws  of  Hammurapi — 
Analysis  of  those  laws — Comparison  with  the  Hebrew — 
Sarah  and  Hagar — Rahab,  the  tavern-keeper — Hammu- 
rapi's  laws  and  Alfred's  Dooms — The  relation  of  Hammu- 
rapi's  laws  to  Hebrew  legislation 48-92 

III 

HISTORY  AND  PROPHECY 

Egyptian  travel  story  of  the  time  of  the  Judges — Introduc- 
tion of  iron — Invention  of  the  alphabet — Beginning  of  the 
Hebrew  records — Parallel  with  Europe — David's  kingdom 
— The  origin  and  original  form  of  the  name  of  the  God  of 
the  Jews,  Yahaweh — Solomon's  temple  and  its  resem- 
blance in  principle  to  Babylonian  temples — The  Nethinim 
or  temple  servants — Light  on  the  policies  of  Ahab,  Jehu, 
and  Jeroboam — Discovery  of  some  of  the  lost  ten  tribes 
— Sennacherib's  inscriptions — Merodach  Baladan  and 
Hezekiah — The  Assyrian  disaster  and  its  confirmation  of 
the  Messianic  hope— Sennacherib's  destruction  of  Babylon 
and  Isaiah's  prophecy  of  the  Day  of  Yahaweh  based 
thereon — The  three  volumes  of  Isaiah — The  Tammuz  cult 
in  Babylonia  and  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah — The  Tam- 
muz-Adonis  ritual,  its  origin  and  meaning— Jeremiah's 


Summary  of  Contents  xi 

paoi 
purchase  of  the  property  of  his  cousin  Hanameel — First 
discovery  of  the  use  of  clay  contract  tablets  among  the 
Jews — Discovery  of  clay  tablets  in  Palestine — The  book 
of  Daniel  and  the  Babylonian  records — Nebuchadrezzar 
and  Belshazzar — Cyrus  and  Darius — Use  of  folk-lore  in 
the  book  of  Daniel— The  true  value  of  Daniel     .     .     93-131 

IV 

HEBREW  PSALMODY 

Bad  tendencies  of  recent  Psalm  criticism — Psalms  are  litur- 
gies, not  odes  of  a  court  poet — Ancient  liturgical  use  of 
Poor  and  Needy — Copying,  adaptation  and  preservation 
of  old  Babylonian  liturgies — Evidence  from  88th  Psalm 
of  similar  practices  among  the  Hebrews — Parallelism  the 
essential  feature  of  both  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  poetry 
— Similar  ritual  uses  and  liturgical  formulae  in  Hebrew 
and  Babylonian  Psalms — Similarity  in  Psalm  titles  and 
musical  accompaniments — The  place  of  sacrifice — Two 
penitentials  compared — Messianic  king,  deified  king — 
Relation  of  Hebrew  to  Babylonian  psalmody — David  and 
the  Psalter  of  the  Jerusalem  temple — Local  notes  in  Psalm 
collections— The  Pilgrim  Psalter— The  Psalm  Book  of 
Dan — The  impregnable  fortress  of  Sion— Adaptation  of  a 
Korahite  Psalm  for  use  by  the  Jerusalem  choir — Mis- 
understanding of  rubrics — A  processional  liturgy  for  a 
royal  sacrifice  at  Jerusalem 132-167 

V 

THE  EXPLORATION  OF  PALESTINE 

Begun  by  Americans,  Robinson  and  Smith — Lynch's  explora- 
tion of  the  Dead  Sea — Organization  of  the  English  Pales- 
tine Exploration  Fund — Warren's  excavations  at  Jeru- 
salem— The  survey  of  Palestine — Surface  finds — Egyptian 
inscriptions— The  Moabite  stone — The  Silwan  inscription 
— Its  further  history — The  temple  barrier  inscription — 
Inscription  of  the  priestly  tomb— Inscription  of  the  syna- 


xii  Summary  of  Contents 

PAGE 

gogue  of  the  Libertines — Renewal  of  excavations — 
Lachish  and  the  first  clay  tablet— The  south  wall  of  Jeru- 
salem— Bliss's  excavations  in  the  Shephielah— The  painted 
tombs  of  Marissa— Excavation  of  Gezer— The  Canaanite 
sanctuary  and  its  abominations — The  rock-cut  water 
tunnel — The  pool  and  tunnel  at  Gibeon — General  results 
of  the  excavations  at  Gezer — Beth  Shemesh — Sellin's  ex- 
cavations at  Taanach,  Jericho  and  Shechem — More  tablets 
— German  excavations  at  Megiddo — An  Israelite  inscrip- 
tion and  an  Israelite  temple — American  excavations  at 
Samaria — Palace  of  Ahal) — The  synagogue  at  Capernaum 
— House  of  Caiaphas  and  ancient  stair  street — Excava- 
tions in  David's  City — Collections  of  antiquities  and  sum- 
mary of  results — Underground  Jerusalem — Sites  identified 
— The  tomb — Golgotha — The  Praetorium — Gethsemane — 
House  of  the  Last  Supper — Elsewhere  in  Palestine — 
Nazareth  —  Shechem  —  Present  prospects  and  present 
agencies — The  American  school — The  American  oppor- 
tunity             168-203 

VI 

NEW  TESTAMENT  TIMES 

Prevalence  of  magic  among  the  Jews — Sumerian  magic,  the 
ban  and  the  atonement — The  corresponding  Jewish  use — 
The  principle  of  exorcism — The  word  of  power  and  the  use 
of  the  name — Sympathetic  magic  and  the  swine — Credal 
and  sacramental  charms — Egyptian  magical  and  romantic 
stories — Egyptian  side  lights,  Amarna,  Jeb  and  Oxyrhyn- 
cus — Dictionary  and  grammar  revolutionized — The  home 
view  of  the  outer  world — Every-day  life  under  Roman  rule 
— A  libellus  illustrating  Rev.  13— Slaves  and  freedmen — 
Domestic  and  family  life — Expose  the  girl — Publicans, 
taxes  and  graft — The  sayings  of  Jesus — The  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  the  Hebrews— St.  Luke  and  the  inscriptions — 
New  realism  in  the  Gospels — The  steps  on  which  Jesus  trod 
— The  praetorium  and  the  gambling  soldiers — The  Place 
of  the  Skull  and  the  Tomb— The  Parable  of  the  Vine— The 
"High  Priest  Prayer" 204-239 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING   PAOB 

Jacob's  Pillar 24 

Jacob's  Pillar  from  below 28 

Synagogue  of  the  Hasidim  on  western  hill  of  Jerusalem       .  150 

Present-day  view  of  the  Temple  courts  looking  down  from 
the  western  hill 154 

Spring  of  Robinson's  Arch 160 

The  pool  of  Silwan  (Siloam),  which  the  leader  was  to  en- 
circle    162 

From  rampart  to  rampart,  Psalms  84  : 7 164 

Recent  Jewish  excavations 166 

Khebur  Israim,  Tomb  of  Israel  (?) 180 

Rock-cut  pool  and  secret  water  passage  beneath  Gibeon      .  184 

Frank  Mountain,  an  artificial  mountain  a  few  miles  south- 
east of  Bethlehem,  built  by  Herod  for  his  tomb       .     .  188 

Pillars  of  the  Basilica  at  Sebaste,  the  Herodian-Roman  city 
built  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Samaria 192 

Threshing  floor  over  cave  on  Mount  Gerizzim,  where  the 
Samaritan  takes  off  his  shoes 200 

Enclosing  wall  of  old  Temple  area  in  Jerusalem   ....  214 

Ruins  of  a  white  marble  synagogue  at  Capernaum    .     .     .  232 

House  of  the  wicked  husbandmen 234 


•  •  ■ 


THE  ANCESTRY  OF  THE  HEBREWS 

Every  one  is  familiar,  I  suppose,  with  the  story  of 
Franklin  and  the  book  of  Ruth.  Intellectual  Paris 
had  cast  aside  the  Bible;  to  read  it  or  to  quote  it  marked 
a  man  an  ignoramus.  On  the  other  hand  the  intel- 
lectuals had  gone  mad  over  the  ancient  writings  of 
all  other  races  and  religions  than  the  Christians  and 
their  Hebrew  forebears.  It  was  the  fashion  to  praise 
and  bewonder  the  beauty,  the  spirituality,  the  pro- 
fundity of  such  writings,  and  happy  he  who  could  dis- 
cover some  new  treasure  from  the  Orient.  Franklin 
belonged  to  a  clique  or  club  at  the  height  of  this  fash- 
ion, where  each  member  in  turn  came  prepared  to 
point  out  or  to  discuss  some  new  bit  of  wit  or  wisdom 
he  felt  himself  to  have  discovered  in  an  ancient  writ- 
ing, or,  if  very  fortunate,  to  present  and  interpret  some 
hitherto  unheard-of  newly  found  record,  saying,  verse, 
or  even  perchance  book  or  treatise  from  the  East,  but 
none  mentioned  or  made  intelligent  allusion  to  the 
Bible.  Came  Franklin's  turn,  he  engaged  an  actress 
to  learn  and  recite  the  book  of  Ruth,  and  took  her  with 
him  to  the  meeting,  explaining  that  having  found  an 
ancient  Oriental  idyl,  which  he  thought  to  be  unknown 
in  Paris,  or  certainly  known  but  to  very  few,  he  had 
brought  a  translation  of  the  same  to  lay  before  them, 

1 


2  BiUe  and  Spade 

and  to  do  full  justice  to  its  singular  beauty  had  engaged 
this  lady,  well  known  to  all,  to  learn  and  recite  it. 

All  were  moved  by  the  pathos,  the  naivete,  the  en- 
gaging charm,  and  the  spirituality  of  the  idyl,  which 
they  wondered  they  had  never  met  nor  heard  of  be- 
fore; and*  when  they  had  abundantly  expressed  them- 
selves to  that  effect,  Franklin  informed  them  that  it 
was  from  the  despised  Bible,  well  known  to  all  Chris- 
tian ignoramuses,  in  which  book,  if  they  would  look, 
they  would  find  much  more  and  better. 

This  revolt  against  the  Bible  was  due  to  its  abuse 
by  men  who  professed  belief  in  its  inspiration.  They 
had  made  that  belief  a  bar  to  progress  by  treating  the 
Bible  as  a  repository  of  all  knowledge,  a  revelation  of 
all  truth,  infallible  in  each  jot  and  tittle.  But  so, 
they  had  locked  up  the  book  itself,  made  it  a  mystery 
and  confined  its  interpretation  to  initiates  only,  putting 
anathema  on  its  free  handling.  No  wonder  the  French 
emancipators  counted  it  a  relic  of  barbarism  and  su- 
perstition, and  cast  it  into  limbo,  as  blind  to  its  sur- 
passing beauty  as  new-made  upstarts  to  the  grace  and 
glory  of  true  art. 

Within  the  memory  of  us  older  men  a  complete 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  theory  and  practice  of 
history  and  the  evaluation  of  historical  documents. 
Partly  this  is  due  to  the  application  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  to  history,  as  to  every  other  field  of  human 
knowledge.  Partly  it  is  due  to  increase  of  knowledge 
in  all  fields.  This  made  the  children  unwilling  to 
accept  without  question  the  conclusions  and  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  fathers.    They  must  for  themselves  exam- 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  3 

ine  all  things  in  the  light  of  their  knowledge.  The 
first  result  was  the  upsetting  of  much  supposed  to  be 
established,  the  rejection  of  an  immense  amount  of 
tradition,  and  the  development  of  an  enormous  scepti- 
cism in  reference  to  everything  old.  The  early  his- 
tory of  Rome,  Greece,  and  Israel  was  but  a  mass  of 
religious  myths  and  fables,  or  national  and  tribal 
legends.  The  ancient  literature  was  relatively  mod- 
ern, or  at  least  had  been  so  worked  over  and  changed 
by  later  hands  that  it  could  not  for  historical  purposes 
be  counted  ancient.  This  scepticism  manifested  it- 
self especially  in  the  study  of  Hebrew  and  early  Chris- 
tian literature  as  contained  in  the  Bible  for  the  same 
reason  which  moved  emancipated  Frenchmen  of 
Franklin's  time  to  cast  the  Bible  into  limbo.  Every 
tradition  of  date  or  authority  of  Bible  books  came  un- 
der suspicion.  The  Pauline  authorship  of  almost  all 
of  the  Epistles  was  denied,  the  Gospel  tradition  of 
Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  rejected,  and  most 
of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  assigned  to  the 
second  century  after  Christ.  Similarly  in  the  Old 
Testament  practically  every  book  was  resolved  into 
a  great  variety  of  documents,  and  as  a  whole  almost 
all  of  them  were  assigned  to  dates  below  the  Exile, 
and  onward  into  the  second  pre-Christian  century, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  reconstruct  from  them  re- 
liable ancient  history.  This  affected  seriously  foun- 
dation facts  as  well  as  documents.  The  Decalogue 
postdated  Moses  by  centuries,  and  then  Moses  van- 
ished altogether;  others  proved  that  Jesus  was  not 
born  at  Bethlehem,  and  some  showed  him  in  fact  a 


4  Bible  and  Spade 

mythical  figure.  And  remember  that  in  general  these 
scholars  were  not  "enemies  of  the  Bible/ '  as  certain 
of  their  theological  opponents  designated  them,  but 
earnest  and  devout  students  of  the  Scriptures.  Their 
attitude  was  a  reaction  against  that  theological  tradi- 
tion of  interpretation  which  seemed  to  them,  not  only 
antiquated,  but  also  pernicious  and  untruthful. 

When  I  began  to  study  ancient  history,  ancient 
meant  a  period  about  500  B.  C.  Practically  there 
was  nothing  known  beyond  that  date.  Earlier  stories, 
as  in  Livy  and  Virgil,  Homer  and  the  Old  Testament, 
contained  no  history  which  could  be  called  such. 
Within  my  memory  the  situation  has  changed  pro- 
foundly. Partly  archaeologists  and  antiquarians  have 
unearthed  and  discovered  objects  and  writings  of  all 
possible  ages,  which  have  furnished  the  material  to 
test,  correct,  and  supplement  the  literature  that  has 
come  down  to  us.  This  has  carried  back  our  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  civilization  almost  as  many  thousand 
years  before  Christ  as  before  we  reckoned  hundreds. 
In  the  same  period  there  has  developed  that  entire 
discipline  of  comparative  science  (comparative  lin- 
guistics, religion,  folk-lore,  games,  and  everything  else), 
a  result  of  the  rapid  enlargement  of  our  information 
and  our  outlook,  which  has  enabled  us  to  evaluate 
and  utilize  for  historical  purposes  much  previously 
known  literary  material,  like  Homer  and  the  book  of 
Genesis.  There  has  set  in  also  the  natural  reaction 
against  the  extreme  attitude  of  iconoclasm  and  re- 
bellion resulting  from  the  children's  discovery  that  all 
the  fathers  had  handed  down  was  not  true.    The  chil- 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  5 

dren  having  grown  older  are  feeling  differently  about 
the  knowledge  and  the  traditions  of  the  fathers,  and 
in  Bible  study  there  is,  at  the  present  moment,  a  strong 
current,  almost  threatening  to  become  a  flood,  toward 
the  rehabilitation  of  older  views.  So  in  the  New 
Testament  within  the  last  few  years  leading  critical 
scholars  have  reaffirmed  the  older  views  of  date  and 
authorship  of  the  Gospels,  Acts  and  Epistles  almost 
unchanged;  and  in  the  Old  Testament  critical  views  of 
composition,  authorship,  and  date  of  books  and  docu- 
ments, which  had  come  to  be  accepted  by  most  modern 
scholars  as  final,  are  being  rudely  questioned.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  old  traditional  views  of  the 
contents  of  the  documents  recorded  in  them  are  al- 
together correct.  It  means  that  we  have  been  finding, 
not  only  that  those  Bible  documents  are  of  the  greatest 
value  as  historical  records,  but  that  the  traditions 
incrusting  them  have  an  historical  importance  which 
had  been  overlooked.  By  means  of  the  Bible,  studied 
with  its  traditions,  plus  the  spade,  we  are  now  restor- 
ing the  very  ancient  history  in  a  rather  wonderful 
way. 

We  shall  not,  however,  get  the  best  results  until 
we  stop  talking  or  thinking  about  defending  the  Bible, 
and  devote  ourselves  wholly  and  unreservedly  and 
without  any  arriere  pensee,  in  Bible  study  as  all  other 
study,  to  the  search  after  truth  for  truth's  sake.  I 
am  not  concerned  in  these  lectures  to  support  the 
Bible  record  by  the  results  of  archaeological  research, 
I  am  concerned  to  find  points  where  the  written  docu- 
ments of  the  Bible  and  archaeological  discoveries  throw 


6  Bible  and  Spade 

light  one  upon  the  other,  either  giving  us  two  wit- 
nesses to  a  fact,  or  the  one  explaining  the  other. 

Genesis  is  a  perfect  treasure-house  of  ancient  lore 
of  the  Hebrew  forebears,  and  of  the  land  of  Canaan, 
and  is  the  most  important  document  in  existence  for 
the  ancient  history  of  hither  Asia.  But  before  we  con- 
sider its  contents  let  us  examine  its  outward  form. 
The  verse  division,  which  is  old  and  of  Hebrew  origin, 
and  the  chapter  division,  which  is  Christian  and  medi- 
aeval, are  convenient  for  purposes  of  reference,  but 
they  often  obscure  the  sense.  The  theological  readers 
of  the  Bible,  who  have  tended  to  make  Genesis  part  of 
a  great  dictionary  of  texts,  and  the  critical  scholars, 
who  have  tended  to  make  it  an  anatomical  laboratory, 
both  alike  disregarding  its  literary  form  and  struc- 
ture, have  failed  to  observe  how  it  was  put  together 
by  its  Hebrew  editor,  or  to  regard  its  character  and 
purpose  as  he  puts  them  before  us. 

Genesis  consists  of  two  parts  or  volumes,  correspond- 
ing in  character  to  the  parts  in  the  Egyptian,  Baby- 
Ionian,  and  Phoenician  histories  of  those  countries  as 
they  have  come  down  to  us  through  the  Greeks.  The 
first  part  of  those  histories  deals  with  the  mythical 
beginnings,  in  which  gods  and  demigods  play  the 
leading  role.  Ages  are  enormous,  reckoned  by  hun- 
dreds, thousands,  and  tens  of  thousands,  and  it  took 
untold  aeons  to  disengage  man  and  man's  earth  from 
their  entanglement  with  deity  and  deity's  abode.  The 
second  part  of  each  of  these  histories  is  human,  a  sane 
and  sober  story  of  dynasties  of  men,  their  achieve- 
ments, and  the  development  and  growth  of  peoples. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  7 

In  Genesis  the  first  volume,  the  first  eleven  chapters, 
deals  with  the  time  when  God,  having  created  the 
world,  walked  and  talked  with  men,  and  they  with 
Him;  deity  and  man  intermarried;  man  struggled  with 
and  even  endangered  the  position  of  God;  and  as 
mythical  and  semidivine  heroes  the  span  of  men's 
lives  was  enormous.  This  first  part  of  the  volume  of 
Genesis  is  divided  into  seven  sections  (Hebrew  chap- 
ters) by  the  recurring  phrase:  These  are  the  generations, 
or  This  is  the  book  of  generations,  only  the  first  chapter 
being  without  this  heading,  because  in  the  nature  of 
things  it  does  not  require  it.  This  (1 : 1-2 : 3)  is  the 
chapter  of  creation:  "In  the  beginning  God  created 
the  heavens  and  the  earth." 

The  second  chapter  begins:  "These  are  the  genera- 
tions of  the  heavens  and  the  earth"  (Gen.  2:4-4). 
This  is  often  spoken  of  as  a  duplicate  of  the  account  of 
creation  contained  in  chapter  1.  It  does  in  fact  over- 
lap and  duplicate  that  account  to  a  small  extent,  and 
it  is  clearly  derived  from  a  different  source,  but  it  is 
not  the  chapter  of  creation,  but  the  chapter  of  the 
preparation.  The  earth  and  the  heavens  having  been 
created,  earth  is  prepared  for  the  dwelling-place  of 
man,  and  a  garden  of  delight  set  at  the  sources  of  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates,  for  there  man  had  his  origin. 
All  beasts  are  formed  and  made  subject  to  man,  for 
he  knows  and  gives  them  their  names,  but  with  none 
of  these  can  he  mate;  so  out  of  his  very  bones  and 
flesh  is  a  helpmeet  made  for  him,  and  theirs  is  all  in 
the  garden.  But  with  sex  comes  sin.  They  lose  Eden, 
and  then  begins  for  the  human  race  a  life  of  toil  and 


8  Bible  and  Spade 

child-bearing,  of  strife  and  envy  and  murder,  out  of 
which  came  the  knowledge  of  proper  city  building, 
metallurgy,  poetry,  and  music. 

The  third  chapter  (5 : 1-6 : 8)  is  headed:  "The  book 
of  the  generations  of  Adam,"  i.  e.t  the  human  race;  a 
list  of  names  of  prehistoric  ancestors  who  reigned  for 
seons,  and  with  whose  daughters  the  gods  cohabited, 
producing  strange  beings  and  provoking  God  at  last 
to  blot  out  that  evil  generation,  preserving  the  one 
just  man,  Noah,  the  last  of  the  primal  heroes.  The 
fourth  chapter  (6:9-9:28),  entitled  "The  Genera- 
tions of  Noah,"  tells  the  story  of  the  flood  which  de- 
stroyed the  old  Adam  brood,  of  a  rebirth,  as  it  were,  of 
the  human  race  in  the  mountains  of  Armenia,  at  or 
near  the  place  of  Adam's  origin,  of  the  establishment 
of  religion,  with  proper  sacrifice,  and  of  husbandry. 

With  the  fifth  chapter  (10 : 1-11 :  9)  we  come  to  the 
"Generations  of  the  Sons  of  Noah,"  Shem,  Ham,  and 
Japheth,  the  repeopling  of  the  earth  by  this  new  human 
race,  and  the  division  of  men  into  peoples,  races,  and 
languages.  It  is  a  review  of  the  nations  and  peoples 
in  the  Hebrew  horizon,  not  primarily  ethnological. 
Japheth  is  the  Medes  to  the  east,  and  the  Scythian 
hordes  to  the  northeast,  and  certain  people  of  central, 
northern  and  western  Asia  Minor  and  of  the  north- 
ern coasts  and  islands  of  the  iEgean  and  Mediter- 
ranean, to  a  considerable  extent  but  by  no  means  en- 
tirely Indo-European.  These  are  the  peoples  of  the 
north.  Ham  is  in  no  sense  an  ethnological  group. 
It  comprises  Ethiopia,  Egypt,  and  northern  Africa, 
Arabia,    Sumerian    Babylonia,    and    the    Canaanites, 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  9 

including  all  the  non-Aramaean  peoples  in  Palestine, 
among  them  Phoenicians  and  Amorites  who  were 
Semitic,  Hittites  who  were  Indo-European,  and  Phil- 
istines. These  are  the  peoples  of  the  South.  Between 
the  Hebrew  and  all  these  Canaanites  there  was  bitter- 
ness and  a  curse.  The  eldest  son,  whose  home  is  nat- 
urally in  the  centre,  Armenia,  southern  Asia  Minor, 
and  Mesopotamia,  is  Shem,  the  father  of  the  Hebrews, 
of  the  Assyrians,  and  above  all  of  the  Aramaeans.1  It 
is  this  stock  to  which  Israel  belongs,  and  in  the  history 
of  which  the  author  of  Genesis  is  concerned,  and  so 
the  sixth  chapter,  Gen.  11:10-26,  is  "The  Genera- 
tions of  Shem,"  a  race  genealogy.  But  among  the 
Semites  it  is  the  Aramaean  stock  which  our  author  de- 
sires to  follow,  because  to  that  division  of  the  Semites 
Israel  belongs.  So  the  concluding  chapter  of  the  first 
volume  of  Genesis  (11 :  27-32)  is  headed  "The  Genera- 
tions of  Terah." 

Notice  that  these  chapters  number  in  all  seven,  the 
mystical  number  of  the  days  of  creation  with  which 
the  volume  began.  The  author  has  drawn  his  material 
from  various  sources,  some  earlier,  some  later,  but  he 
has  so  selected  and  combined  it  as  to  form  a  continuous 
narrative  cunningly  contrived  to  expound  and  to  fix 
in  the  mind  his  grand  theory  of  God's  plan  for  Israel. 

The  second  volume,  from  Gen.  12  onward,  is  ar- 
ranged in  the  same  way,  each  section  or  chapter  headed, 
as  before:  "The  Generations  of ,"  except  that,  as 

1  The  curious  inclusion  of  Elam  in  this  group,  if  the  text  be 
correct,  may  be  political,  a  reflection  of  the  relations  existing 
between  Elam  and  Babylonia. 


10  Bible  and  Spade 

in  the  first  volume,  the  first  chapter  (12 : 1-25 :  12)  re- 
quires and  has  no  heading.  In  this  volume,  however, 
the  manner  is  different.  We  are  on  terra  firma,  deal- 
ing with  familiar  territory,  with  a  wealth  of  human 
tradition  and  folk-lore  to  draw  from.  This  chapter 
tells,  under  the  name  of  Abram  or  Abraham  the  great 
hero  of  Hebron,  the  story  of  the  coming  into  Canaan 
of  the  Israelites,  an  Aramsean  clan  from  Mesopotamia, 
whose  great  shrine  of  Sin,  the  moon-god,  at  Haran  is 
parented  from  the  shrine  of  Sin  at  Ur  in  southern  Baby- 
lonia, Sinai  thus  being  brought  into  connection  with 
both.  Into  this  is  woven  some  later  history,  as  of  the 
descent  into  Egypt,  and  the  deliverance  from  the  Egyp- 
tians by  God's  intervention,1  and  of  the  struggles 
with  the  Philistines.2  It  reflects  also  the  relations  of 
Palestine  with  Babylonia  in  the  pre-Egyptian  period.8 
This  chapter  also  sets  forth  the  fact  that  the  neighbor- 
ing nations,  Moab  and  Ammon,4  are  of  the  same  He- 
brew-Aramaean stock,  children  of  Haran,  but  earlier 
settled  and  separated  from  that  stock.  The  second 
chapter  of  this  volume  (25 :  12-18)  is  entitled:  "These 
are  the  Generations  of  Ishmsel,"  and  informs  us  that 
the  nomadic  or  seminomadic  tribes  to  the  south  and 
southeast  of  Palestine,  stretching  from  the  Egyptian 
border  into  northern  Arabia,  were  of  the  same  Aramsean 
stock  as  Israel,  and  that  with  them  Israel  has  a  later 
connection,  and  therefore  a  closer  kinship,  than  it 
had  with  Moab  and  Ammon.  Like  Israel,  they  have 
the  twelvefold  tribal  division.    They  are,  however, 

*Gen.  12:10-20.  *  Gen.  20. 

3  Gen.  14.  *  Gen.  13* 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  11 

older  by  birth,  i.  e.t  in  longer  possession  of  their  land 
than  Israel.  But  this  line  leads  nowhither,  hence  the 
brevity  of  this  chapter,  and  we  turn  back  in  the  third 
chapter  (25:19-35:29),  "The  Generations  of  Isaac," 
to  follow  the  legitimate  line  of  Israel's  ancestry  through 
the  younger  son.  Still,  however,  we  are  in  close  touch 
with  the  region  of  the  Ishmaelite,  for  Isaac  was  the 
legendary  hero  of  Beersheba,  and  until  late  in  Israel's 
history  Beersheba  was  a  great  pilgrimage  sanctuary, 
especially  of  the  simon-pure  Israelites  of  the  northern 
kingdom,  and  the  Fear  of  Isaac  was  a  common  name 
for  the  deity.  In  the  story  of  the  wife  that  is  brought 
for  Isaac  from  Haran,  than  which  there  is  no  more 
beautiful  specimen  of  the  raconteur's  art  in  all  litera- 
ture, is  set  forth  the  continued  close  relation  of  Israel, 
in  contrast  to  the  neighboring  peoples,  with  the  great 
Aramaean  centre  in  Mesopotamia  and  the  continued 
influx  of  migrant  tribes  from  that  region.  Isaac's 
chapter  is  not,  however,  of  such  varied  interest  from 
the  historical  standpoint  as  Abraham's.  It  pictures 
more  the  conditions  of  the  negeb,  or  south  country, 
the  digging  and  fighting  for  water  in  the  desert  border- 
land. Like  Abraham's  chapter,  this  also  weaves  into 
the  more  ancient  traditions  and  legends  reflections  of 
later  conditions,  and  especially  of  the  struggle  for  the 
possession  of  the  land  between  Hebrews  and  Philis- 
tines.1 

The  fourth  chapter    (36),   "The    Generations   of 
Esau,"  is,  like  the  second,  a  false  lead,  as  it  were; 
it  goes  nowhither.    Edom  was  Israel's  elder  brother. 
»  Gen.  26:1-33. 


12  Bible  and  Spade 

He  became  a  settled  state  adopting  the  Canaanite 
civilization  (Canaanite  marriages),  while  Israel,  the 
younger  brother,  was  still  a  nomad.  Esau's  state  lay 
in  that  southern  region  which  Israel  always  claimed  as 
his  home  and  the  home  of  his  God,  Horeb  and  Sinai; 
and  part  of  this  Edomite  civilization  also  was  Amalek. 
Here  the  author  found  historical  records  as  well  as 
folk-lore  at  hand,  and  is  able  to  give  us  lists  of  kings 
and  chiefs.  Indeed  he  had  two  documents  for  Edom 
before  him,1  and  has  given  us  duplicate  generations  of 
Esau  (36:9-14  and  36: 15-19),  precisely  as  you  find 
duplicates  in  the  heraldic  visitations  of  English  coun- 
ties, which,  as  you  cannot  harmonize,  you  juxtapose. 
But  as  this  line  leads  nowhither  for  his  purpose,  hav- 
ing established  and  noted  the  peculiarly  close  relation 
of  Israel  with  Edom,  our  author  goes  back  to  the  story 
of  Israel's  descent  as  younger  son,  called  by  the  grace 
of  God  to  hazard  and  adventure,  and  so  to  greater 
achievement  and  better  possession.  It  is  almost  as 
though  one  were  reading  the  story  of  American  ances- 
tors in  the  records  of  English  parishes  and  counties, 
the  younger  son  moving  from  a  south  Devon  village 
to  a  north  Devon  town,  and  his  younger  son  from  there 
to  Bristol,  and  still  another  younger  son  from  there  to 
America,  economic  pressure,  the  spirit  of  adventure, 
and  religious  motives  combining  to  carry  them  ever 
onward  toward  a  mighty  goal.  With  the  fifth  chapter 
we  turn  back  to  the  younger  son,  Jacob,  whom  God 

1  Verse  20  is  the  natural  sequence  of  verse  8.  The  two  gene- 
alogies, duplicates  of  one  another,  occur  in  a  second  inserted 
"Generations  of  Esau"  (w.  9-19).  The  whole  Esau  section  is 
curiously  composite. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  13 

selects  above  the  elder  son,  Esau.  This  chapter 
(37 : 2-50 :  25)  is  entitled:  "The  Generations  of  Jacob," 
although  in  point  of  fact  it  tells  little  of  Jacob.  His 
story  has  practically  been  told  under  Isaac.  Its  inci- 
dents are  connected  especially  with  central  Israel, 
Shechem,  and  Bethel,  where  were  the  well  and  the 
pillar  of  Jacob.  He  is,  however,  also  connected  with 
Beersheba,  his  father's  home,  as  his  descendants,  the 
people  Israel,  were  connected  with  the  ancient  and 
ancestral  shrine  of  Beersheba.  The  continuance  of 
Aramaean  immigration  and  the  purity  from  Canaanite 
admixture  of  the  central  stock  is  affirmed  in  the  story 
of  Jacob's  journey  to  Mesopotamia,  and  his  return 
with  his  Aramaean  wives.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
adoption  of  Canaanite  units  into  the  tribes  of  Israel  is 
affirmed  in  the  story  of  the  four  tribes  who  were  chil- 
dren of  concubines.  Jacob  himself  is  identified  with 
Israel,  and  they  are  affirmed  to  be  one  and  the  same. 
With  the  stories  of  the  older  Jacob  are  mingled,  as  in 
the  case  of  Abraham  and  Isaac,  later  historical  reminis- 
cences.1   This  is  true,  also,  in  the  story  of  Joseph, 

1  This  is  a  familiar  phenomenon  of  folk-lore,  and  of  primitive 
or  folk  history.  Many  years  ago  I  became  interested  in  the 
Wends  of  the  Spreewald,  a  Slav  enclave  in  German  territory, 
retaining  its  own  ancient  language  and  much  of  its  ancient  cus- 
toms and  costumes.  Their  folk-lore,  as  I  learned  it,  was  largely 
that  of  their  German  neighbors  as  represented  by  Grimm's 
Fairy  Tales,  but  Frederick  the  Great  and  his  hussar  general, 
Ziethen,  moved  and  acted  among  the  mythical  and  legendary 
events  and  characters  of  that  folk-lore,  often  playing  the  part 
played  by  the  fairies,  heroes,  or  supernatural  beings  of  Grimm's 
tales.  Similarly  in  one  version  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied  we  have 
Burgundian  history  and  Burgundian  historical  characters  of  the 
fourteenth  century  A.  D.  mixed  in  with  the  events  and  characters 


14  Bible  and  Spade 

which  constitutes  the  greater  part  of  the  chapter  en- 
titled "The  Generations  of  Jacob."  Like  Jacob,  he 
also  was  connected  with  Shechem,  where  his  tomb  is 
honored  to  this  day.  "The  Generations  of  Jacob" 
are  in  fact  the  chapter  on  the  twelve  patriarchs,  the 
legendary  history  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  of  which 
Joseph's  story  was  the  chiefest.    Jacob  and  the  twelve 

of  the  old  prehistoric  Teutonic  epic.  Similarly,  also,  in  the  most 
complete  form  of  the  Babylonian  Gilgamesh  poem  which  haa 
come  down  to  us,  through  the  late  copy  in  Ashurbanipal's  li-. 
brary,  events  of  the  history  of  the  city  of  Erech  toward  the  close 
of  the  third  millennium  B.  C.  are  combined  with  much  more 
archaic  myths  and  legends.  It  follows  from  the  above,  also, 
that  the  fact  that  myths  and  legends  are  told  as  part  of  the  story 
of  an  individual  is  not  of  itself  a  proof  that  no  such  individual 
existed,  or  that  his  whole  story  is  a  myth  or  a  legend.  The  fail- 
ure to  recognize  this  has  resulted  in  some  very  curious  misinter- 
pretations of  history.  The  most  delightful  case  in  my  own  ex- 
perience was  that  of  the  great  King  Sargon  of  Akkad,  who  towers 
so  mightily  in  old  Babylonian  story  that  he  came  to  be  encircled 
with  a  number  of  myths  and  legends.  He  was  the  son  of  di- 
vinity by  a  mortal  and  was  exposed  in  an  ark  on  the  Euphrates. 
Through  the  merciful  protection  of  the  gods  he  was  saved  by 
an  humble  gardener,  who  took  him  as  his  son;  and  more  of  the 
same  type.  In  1890  a  learned  German  scholar,  Winckler,  wrote 
a  book  proving  him  on  this  basis  never  to  have  existed,  and  him- 
self, his  mighty  empire,  and  his  great  achievements  to  be  a  mere 
mirage  of  myth  and  legend.  Just  at  that  time  I  was  digging  up 
at  Nippur  records  and  inscriptions  of  Sargon's  very  own  self, 
proving  incontrovertibly  his  existence,  and  substantiating  the 
essential  truth  of  his  myth-embroidered  story.  In  interpreting 
ancient  Hebrew  story  and  tradition  we  must  be  careful  not  to 
make  a  similar  blunder.  Because  Moses  was  exposed  in  an  ark, 
or  because  in  Abraham's  story  are  commingled  events  separated 
by  centuries,  it  does  not  follow  that  such  men  never  existed  or 
that  the  essentials  of  their  stories  are  untrue.  Myth  and  legend 
are  often  merely  a  proof  of  the  phenomenal  greatness  of  the 
person  about  whom  they  are  told;  and  myth  and  legend  some- 
times grow  and  develop  with  remarkable  rapidity,  within  very 
much  less  than  a  lifetime. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  15 

patriarchs  could  not,  however,  be  given  separate  chap- 
ters, because  that  would  have  interfered  with  the 
scheme  of  chapter  arrangement.  The  second  volume 
must  contain  five  chapters,  so  that,  added  to  the 
first  volume,  the  whole  book  might  consist  of  twelve 
chapters,  the  number  of  the  twelve  tribes.  The  first 
volume  commences  with  creation,  and  the  number  of 
its  chapters  is  the  mystic  number  of  days  of  creation; 
the  second  volume  adds  five,  to  give  the  complete 
number  of  Israel,  and  ends  with  the  story  of  the  twelve 
tribes,  God's  completed  work. 

I  have  treated  the  scheme  of  Genesis  somewhat  at 
length,  because  I  wished  to  use  it  as  a  means  to  show 
how  recent  research  has  established  the  truthfulness 
of  the  old  Hebrew  traditions  contained  in  this  twelve- 
chaptered  book  of  Genesis.  There  was  a  time  when 
these  traditions  were  treated  as  literal  history,  as  was 
the  Roman  story  of  Romulus  and  Remus  suckled  by 
the  wolf.  There  followed  a  period  of  reaction,  when,  as 
history,  these  stories  were  brushed  aside,  and  we  began 
to  build  up  the  early  story  of  hither  Asia  on  other 
lines.  A  half-century  ago  some  one,  I  do  not  now  know 
surely  who  first  propounded  the  theory,  derived  all 
the  Semites  from  Arabia.  Out  of  Arabia,  as  from  a 
seething  caldron,  boiling  over  at  intervals,  forcing  up 
the  lid,  and  pouring  out  its  excess  of  population  in 
successive  eruptions,  came  first,  in  the  fourth  millen- 
nium B.  C,  a  flood  of  Semitic  peoples  in  two  streams, 
divided  by  the  desert,  occupying  Babylonia  on  the 
east  and  northern  Syria  on  the  west.  A  thousand  years 
later  came  another  wave  of  invasion,  which  occupied 


16  Bible  and  Spade 

Canaan  on  the  west,  and  on  the  east  strengthened  and 
modified  the  Semitic  stock  already  in  Babylonia.  An- 
other thousand  years  later,  about  1500  B.  C,  came 
another  wave  of  invasion,  the  Aramaean,  occupying 
Palestine,  east  and  west  of  the  Jordan,  pushing  north- 
ward into  Syria,  homing  in  Mesopotamia,  and  drift- 
ing into  Babylonia.  About  a  thousand  years  later 
came  the  Nabatseans,  followed  by  the  Lakhmids  and 
the  Ghassanids,  on  the  east  and  west  of  the  desert 
respectively.  After  approximately  another  millen- 
nium, in  the  seventh  century  of  our  era,  came  the  great 
Mohammedan  eruption  of  Arabs,  which  carried  the 
farthest  and  spread  the  widest  of  all.  It  is  a  beauti- 
fully symmetrical  scheme,  a  perfect  specimen  of  nat- 
ural law  functioning  without  interference,  and  it  won 
universal  acceptance.  It  passed  beyond  the  stage  of 
a  working  hypothesis,  and  came  to  be  treated  as  a 
fundamental  truth  on  which  we  might  safely  build, 
as  on  a  rock,  and  we  all  proceeded  to  do  so. 

Now  observe  that  this  theory  of  the  ancestry  of 
the  Hebrews  and  their  kin,  the  north  Semitic  peoples, 
quite  disregards  and  entirely  contradicts  the  tradi- 
tions and  the  records  of  Genesis.  No  one  even  thought 
of  taking  that  into  account.  But  even  linguistics 
should  have  shown  us  the  inherent  improbability  of 
this  theory.  The  south  Semitic  languages — Arabic, 
Ethiopic,  Minsean  and  Sabsean — on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  north  Semitic — Babylonian-Assyrian,  Aramaean, 
and  Canaanite-Hebrew — on  the  other,  constitute  two 
distinct  groups.  The  peoples  speaking  the  languages 
of  these  two  groups  could  not  have  come  out  of  one 
caldron  in  successive  eruptions  as  depicted.    The  two 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  17 

groups  as  groups  must  have  separated  at  some  early 
time,  and  then  each  group  developed  by  itself  inde- 
pendently, so  that  each  group  came  finally  to  contain 
subgroups  and  species  of  its  own.  How  much  time 
that  required,  how  the  original  division  took  place, 
and  what  was  the  habitat  of  the  original  Semitic  stock 
before  the  division  into  the  two  great  groups  of  north 
and  south  Semitic  took  place,  we  do  not  surely  know. 
So  far,  however,  as  movements  of  the  north  Semitic 
peoples  are  concerned  the  testimony  of  the  monu- 
ments flatly  and  at  almost  all  points  contradicts  the 
theory  we  had  evolved.  As  a  result  of  excavations 
in  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Palestine,  and  Egypt  we  are 
now  able  to  present  a  pretty  fair  view  of  the  history  of 
racial  movements  in  that  part  of  hither  Asia  south  of 
the  centre  of  Asia  Minor  and  north  of  the  centre  of 
Arabia,  from  the  Persian  mountains  westward  to  the 
edge  of  the  iEgean  Sea,  and  including  also  Egypt, 
from  somewhere  in  the  fourth  millennium  B.  C.  onward. 
Before  that  time  a  Semitic  immigration  into,  or  inva- 
sion of,  Egypt,  from  what  side  or  source  we  do  not 
surely  know,  had  brought  into  being  the  mixed  race 
which  we  know  as  Egyptian.  At  that  time  southern, 
and  perhaps  also  central,  Arabia  may  have  been  in- 
habited by  the  Semitic  peoples  whom  we  know  later  as 
Minseans,  Sabseans,  etc.,  who  early  developed  a  high 
civilization  in  Yemen,  and  out  of  whom  sprang  Arabs 
and  Ethiopians,  the  south  Semitic  group  of  which  we 
have  spoken.  But  our  information  about  those  re- 
gions is  relatively  late,  and  what  their  condition  and 
stage  of  civilization  was  at  the  close  of  the  fourth 
millennium  we  do  not  know.    At  that  period  there 


18  Bible  and  Spade 

were  no  northern  Semites  below  Syria  on  the  west  and 
northern  Babylonia  on  the  east.  Babylonia,  when  we 
first  learn  anything  about  it  from  the  inscriptions 
found  at  Nippur  and  Lagash,  was  inhabited  by  a  non- 
Semitic  people,  whom  we  call  Sumerians,  after  the 
name  of  their  land,  Sumer,  the  biblical  Shinar.  They 
were  already  at  that  time  a  civilized  people,  with  a 
well-developed  script,  having  its.  original  picture-writ- 
ing far  behind  it.  In  general  the  people  of  the  Eu- 
phrates and  Tigris  valley  stood  on  the  same  plane  of 
civilization  as  the  Egyptians  of  the  Nile  valley,  each 
civilization,  however,  having  developed  independently 
of  the  other.  The  home  of  this  civilization  seems  to 
have  been  from  somewhere  in  the  archipelago  at  the 
head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  then  100  miles  or  more  farther 
north  than  at  present,  to  Nippur,  100  miles  south  of 
Baghdad.  Apparently  their  towns  and  cities  reached 
northward  as  far  as  Kalah  Sherghat,  ancient  Ashur, 
on  the  Tigris,  where  their  remains  seem  to  have  been 
found  beneath  those  of  the  Semitic  Assyrians  by  the 
German  excavators.  This  civilization  also  extended 
eastward  into  Elam,  the  Karun  valley  in  modern 
Persia;  but  linguistically  Babylonians  and  Elamites 
differed.  When  our  written  records  begin,  toward  the 
close  of  the  fourth  millennium,  there  were  Semitic 
cities  in  northern  Babylonia,  and  up  the  Euphrates 
into  northern  Syria.  The  inhabitants  of  the  latter 
region  were  known  as  Amorites,1  the  people  of  the  west 

1  The  name  Amorite  is  here  used  roughly  of  all  the  western 
Semites  before  the  advent  on  the  scene  of  the  Aramaeans.  It 
is  well  attested  for  the  period  about  2500  B.  C,  it  is  not  so  cer- 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  19 

land,  but  the  Semites  in  northern  Babylonia  were  also 
of  the  same  stock,  as  we  know  from  the  names  found 
in  the  inscriptions.  The  inscriptions  show  the  Semitic 
states  of  northern  Babylonia  gradually  growing  stronger 
in  the  third  millennium  and  pressing  down  more  and 
more  on  the  Sumerian  cities  of  the  south.  About 
2500  they  acquire  a  dominant  position,  apparent  evi- 
dence that  the  Semitic  element  in  Babylonia  was 
strongly  reinforced  and  dominated  at,  or  somewhat 
before,  that  time  by  immigration  or  invasion  from  the 
north  or  northwest.  By  the  close  of  this  millennium 
we  find  the  whole  of  Babylonia  constituting  a  Semitic 
empire  under  Babylon  as  its  capital  with,  northward 
of  this,  the  strong  Semitic  state  of  Assyria,  while  a 
homogeneous  Semitic  Babylonian  culture  and  civili- 
zation extends  all  over  hither  Asia  south  of  the  Taurus 
mountains,  and  even  beyond  the  Taurus  into  Cappa- 
docia  of  Asia  Minor.  Manifestly  the  Semites  have 
been  pressing  down  from  the  north,  not  up  from  the 
south. 

Excavations  in  Palestine,  especially  at  Gezer  and 
Jerusalem,  have  revealed  conditions  confirmatory  of 
this  view  of  the  direction  of  the  Semitic  movement, 
derived  from  Hebrew  tradition  and  Babylonian  and 
Assyrian  inscriptions.  Before  2500  B.  C.  Palestine 
was  inhabited  by  a  non-Semitic  population,  rude  trog- 

tain  that  it  can  properly  be  used  as  the  designation  of  the  west 
Semites  before  that  date.  Similarly  it  is  not  clear  whether  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  the  Aramaeans  on  the  scene  we  have  two 
Semitic  substocks,  successively  moving  southward  from  Asia 
Minor,  or  one  moving  southward  continuously  or  rather  inter- 
mittently over  a  very  long  period,  with  varying  intensity. 


20  Bible  and  Spade 

lodytes;  the  beginners  of  those  wonderful  caves  which 
are  among  the  marvels  of  Palestine,  and  the  impres- 
sion of  which  upon  the  Jews  is  reflected  in  the  refer- 
ences to  their  troglodytic  predecessors  in  their  legends 
and  their  folk-lore.  Egyptian  writings  agree  with  this 
in  so  far  as  they  exhibit  Palestine  as  a  barbarous  re- 
gion at  this  time.  Somewhere  about  2500  B.  C,  how- 
ever, the  excavators  found  the  remains  of  a  Semitic 
house-building  people  taking  the  place  of  those  of  this 
earlier,  ruder,  non-Semitic  people. 

The  record  seems  to  show  that  up  to  about  2500  B. 
C.  a  civilized  non-Semitic  people,  the  Sumerians,  were 
in  possession  of  southern  Babylonia,  but  were  being 
pressed  upon  by  the  Semites  from  the  north;  and  that 
up  to  the  same  date  Palestine  was  occupied  by  uncivi- 
lized non-Semitic  peoples,  the  Sinaitic  region  being  also 
in  the  possession  of  wild  tribes,  but  more  or  less  under 
control  of  Egypt,  because  of  her  mining  interests. 
Between  Babylonia  and  the  uncivilized  regions  of 
Palestine  and  the  Sinaitic  lay  a  desert.  To  the  north 
of  this  desert  were  aggressive  northern  Semites  press- 
ing southward;  far  off  to  the  south  of  it  were  the  south- 
ern Semites  of  Arabia.  About  2500  B.  C.  the  Semites 
gain  the  supremacy  over  the  Sumerians  in  southern 
Babylonia,  and  at  the  same  time  a  Semitic  people  occu- 
pies Palestine.  Similarity  of  names  at  this  period  in 
Syria  and  Babylonia  show  that  these  Semites  were  all 
of  the  same  stock,  the  Amorite.  About  the  same  time, 
also,  some  catastrophe  befalls  Egyptian  civilization, 
and  Egyptian  records  fail.  This  catastrophe  is  gen- 
erally supposed  to  have  been  due  to  a  foreign  invasion, 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  21 

and  in  view  of  the  evidence  of  the  invasion  of  Baby- 
lonia and  Palestine  by  the  Semitic  Amorites  at  this 
time  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  it  was  hordes  of  the 
same  stock  which  invaded  Egypt  and  for  a  time  pre-* 
vented  its  civilization  from  functioning.  In  Syria 
and  Babylonia  the  invaders  more  readily  assimilated 
the  existing  civilization,  and  before  the  close  of  the 
third  millennium  we  find,  from  inscriptions  recovered 
in  Babylonia,  Assyria,  and  Cappadocia,  that  the  re- 
gion from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Persian  Gulf  was 
practically  unified  in  culture  and  civilization  and  that 
a  north  Semitic,  Babylonian  script  and  language  were 
in  use  well  into  Central  Asia  Minor.  This  was  the 
great  Amorite-Semitic  invasion,  and  to  this  Amorite 
stock  belong  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Canaanites  whom 
later  the  Israelites  found  in  possession  of  the  Holy 
Land. 

Early  in  the  second  millennium  Indo-European  peo- 
ples began  to  press  southward  into  Asia  Minor,  spurs 
or  downthrusts,  apparently,  of  that  great  movement 
eastward  which  brought  the  Aryans  into  Iran  and 
India,  and  left  the  Scythians  on  the  Russian  and  Cen- 
tral Asian  plains.  The  most  westerly  of  these  down- 
thrusts  seems  to  have  crossed  over  into  Asia  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Hellespont,  in  the  Troad.  Another, 
crossing  near  the  mouth  of  the  Bosphorus,  pushed 
southward,  establishing  ultimately  the  Hittite  empire 
in  central  Asia  Minor,  with  Chatti,  the  modern  Boghaz 
Keui,  as  its  capital;  another,  perhaps  descending  from 
the  northeast,  founded  the  kingdom  of  the  Mitanni  in 
Mesopotamia;  while  eastward  still  another  spur  di- 


22  Bible  and  Spade 

rectly  or  Indirectly  overran  Babylonia  as  Cassites  and 
founded  the  Cassite  dynasty  there.1  This  was  pre- 
cisely like  the  later  movements  of  the  Scythians  in 
the  seventh  century  B.  C,  who  overran  hither  Asia, 
establishing  settlements  as  far  west  as  Palestine;  like 
the  conquest  of  Central  Asia  by  a  small  horde  of  20,000 
Galatians  a  few  centuries  later;  like  the  sea  raids  of 
the  Normans  in  the  ninth  and  following  centuries  of 
our  era,  all  of  these  European  peoples  moving  south- 
ward and  eastward;  or  like  the  similar  westward  move- 
ments of  Asiatic  hordes,  Huns,  Mongolians,  and  Turks, 
who  later  penetrated,  overran,  and  established  king- 
doms in  Europe  and  hither  Asia.  The  conquerors 
were  a  relatively  small  body  who  dominated  and  ruled 
over  a  large  mass  with  whom  they  ultimately  amalga- 
mated, sometimes  being  assimilated  in  language  as 
in  civilization,  sometimes  imposing  their  own  language 
and  customs  on  the  country,  and  sometimes  the  two 
languages  and  civilizations  combining,  as  in  England.2 
Such  invasions  resulted  from  various  causes,  chiefly 
economic,  pressure  of  population,  change  of  climate 

1  According  to  the  records  discovered,  the  Hittites  took  and 
sacked  Babylon  in  1925,  overthrowing  the  native  Semitic  dy- 
nasty, and  thus  preparing  the  way  for  the  Cassite  rule. 

2  The  Mitanni  show  the  most  striking  evidences  of  Indo- 
European  origin  in  the  names  of  their  gods.  In  the  case » of 
Hittites  and  Cassites  the  evidence  is  rather  linguistic,  certain 
features  of  those  languages  appearing  to  be  clearly  European. 
It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  our  knowledge  of  those 
languages  is  as  yet  very  imperfect,  and  in  what  we  know  there 
are  other  features  as  distinctly  not  Indo-European.  The  present 
evidence  suggests  such  a  union  of  a  small  governing  people  with 
a  vastly  larger  mass  alien  in  tongue  as  I  have  assumed  above,  but 
we  are  not  yet  out  of  the  realm  of  speculation. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  23 

(especially  diminution  of  rainfall  resulting  from  earth 
changes,  and  consequent  desiccation  of  the  homeland l), 
desire  for  easier  conditions,  greed  for  the  goods  and 
wealth  of  richer  peoples,  ambition  and  adventure,  and 
religious  zeal  or  fanaticism.  Such,  single  or  combined, 
have  been  the  motives  which  led  peoples  to  leave  their 
former  domiciles  and  invade  the  lands  of  others.  Con- 
quest by  such  invaders  was  rendered  possible  by  the 
effeminacy  and  pacifism  of  the  more  numerous  and 
more  civilized  peoples  conquered;  or  by  some  superi- 
ority in  armament  of  the  invaders  over  the  invaded, 
as  of  copper  over  stone,  iron  over  copper,  gunpowder 
over  steel.  Such  invasions  and  conquests  always  push 
out  other  foot-loose  people,  who,  in  their  turn,  may  be- 
come invaders  of  other  lands. 

Some  of  the  Indo-Europeans  who  invaded  Asia 
Minor  and  established  kingdoms  there,  pushed  on 
farther  southward  with  hordes  of  Asia  Minorites,  who 
had  been  driven  out  of  their  homes.  The  bulk* of 
these  hordes  were  pretty  surely  Semites,  still  of  the 
older  stock  of  Amorites,  but  they  probably  were  led 
or  officered  by  the  conquering  Indo-Europeans.  So 
it  is  that  the  Bible  tells  us  of  Hittites  among  the  popu- 
lations of  Palestine  as  far  south  as  Hebron.  Now 
these  Indo-Europeans  had  prevailed  over  the  Asia 


1The  excavations  and  explorations  of  Raphael  Pumpelly  in 
Turkestan,  especially  at  and  about  Anau,  seem  to  indicate  this 
as  the  cause  of  extensive  emigration  from  that  region.  There 
appear  to  be  evidences  of  some  touch  of  the  people  of  this  re- 
gion with  Babylonia  at  an  early  period,  and  also  of  emigration 
from  this  region  westward  into  Europe;  but  the  work  done  is  not 
sufficient  to  give  assured  results. 


24  Bible  and  Spade 

Minorites  partly,  surely,  because  they  had  horses; 
and  this  is  the  first  appearance  of  the  horse  upon  the 
stage  of  military  history.  It  was  the  possession  of 
the  horse,1  thus  introduced,  which  enabled  these  foot- 
loose hordes  to  sweep  over  Mesopotamia  and  Syria, 
and  to  enter  and  conquer  Egypt,  in  the  history  of  which 
country  they  are  known  as  Hyksos.  They  established 
a  loosely  knit  empire  of  great  extent,  whose  exact 
boundaries  we  do  not  know,  but  which  surely  included 
Egypt  and  probably  extended  to  the  Taurus  and  the 
Euphrates.  In  general  character  it  was  presumably 
like  some  of  the  Mongolian  empires  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  Hyksos  capital,  Avaris,  lay  on  the  border 
between  Egypt  and  Asia,  and  from  this  point  the  Hyk- 
sos ruled  Egypt  for  200  years. 

Then  came  the  reaction.  Egypt,  pressed  to  the 
ground,  rose  from  it,  like  the  giant  of  Greek  story,  to  a 
new  and  vigorous  life.  It  became  a  warrior  nation. 
It  appropriated  the  horse,  and  its  chariots  and  horses 
became  famous.  It  conquered  Avaris,  drove  the 
Hyksos  out  of  Egypt,  and  then  attacked  them  in  their 
Asiatic  strongholds,  of  which  Kadesh  on  the  Orontes 
seems  to  have  been  the  chief,  gradually  subduing 
Palestine  and  Syria  to  the  Taurus  and  Euphrates, 
then  crossing  the  Euphrates  and  attacking  the  Hkysos's 
cousins,  the  Mitanni  of  Mesopotamia.  Among  the 
various  elements  of  this  Asiatic  Hyksos  empire,  which 
we  find  mentioned  in  the  Egyptian  records  of  these 
wars,  are  Jacob-her,  or  Jacob-el,  the  Jacob  of  the  Bible, 

1  It  is  with  the  Cassites  that  we  first  have  certain  evidence  of 
the  use  of  the  norse  in  war. 


Photograph  by  Prof.  Elihu  Grant. 

Jacob's  Pillar. 

Natural  stones  of  memorial,  of  superhuman  size,  traditionally  ascribed  to 
Jacob,  constituting  the  sacred  feature  of  the  Temple  at  Bethel. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  25 

and  Joseph-el,  the  Joseph  of  the  Bible,  Amorite  peoples 
of  central  Palestine  whose  homeland  and  sanctuaries 
the  Hebrews  later  amalgamated  with  their  own  Israel.1 
Before  the  Hyksos  conquest  of  Egypt,  as  we  know  from 
the  Babylonian  records,  reflected  also  in  the  Bible,  in 
the  story  of  Abraham  and  Amraphel  (Gen.  14),  Pales- 
tine lay  in  the  sphere  of  Babylonian  influence  and  of 
Babylonian  raids  and  conquests.  After  the  over- 
throw of  the  Hyksos  power  and  the  establishment  of 
the  great  Egyptian  empire  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty, 
Egyptian  culture  and  influence  predominated  through- 
out Palestine,  as  we  learn  from  the  excavations  con- 
ducted at  Lachish,  Gezer,  and  Taanach;2  except  only 
that  the  Babylonian  script  and  language  continued  to 
be  the  medium  of  international  intercourse  throughout 
all  western  Asia.  It  is  indeed  to  Canaanite  records, 
written  in  this  Babylonian  script  and  language,  dis- 
covered in  Egypt  about  a  third  of  a  century  ago  (1887- 
1888),  that  we  owe  our  information  about  the  fall  of 
that  Egyptian  Asiatic  empire,  and  the  part  in  it  which 
the  Hebrews  played.  Those  records  are  known  as  the 
Tel  el-Amarna  tablets,  because  they  were  written  on 
clay  tablets  in  the  cuneiform  script,  and  were  found 
at  the  tel,  or  ruin  mound,  called  el-Amarna,  covering 
the  site  of  Akhetaton,  the  capital  of  Akhenaton,  or 

irThe  same  names,  Abraham,  Jacob,  and  Joseph,  appear  at 
this  time  in  Babylonia  as  personal  names.  The  Jacob  and 
Joseph  of  the  Egyptian  records  are  the  names  of  peoples.  In 
a  similar  manner  later  we  find  in  the  Assyrian  records  the  per- 
sonal name  of  Omri,  king  of  Israel,  used  to  designate  land  and 
people  long  after  the  death  of  the  actual  Omri. 

2  The  Egyptian  dominance  of  Egypt  in  Canaan  is  reflected  in 
the  close  relationship  of  Canaan  to  Egypt  in  old  Hebrew  legend. 


26  Bible  and  Spade 

Ikhnaton,  the  reformer  king  of  Egypt,  1375-1358 
B.C. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  before 
Christ  a  belt  of  civilization,  including  both  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean,  extended  vaguely  from  Spain  on 
the  west  to  China  on  the  east,  and  from  the  Black 
Sea  on  the  north  to  Nubia  on  the  south.  In  this  belt 
the  great  centres  of  civilization  and  power,  of  which 
we  have  certain  knowledge,  were  Crete  and  the  ^Egean, 
Egypt,  the  Hittite  empire  in  Asia  Minor,  the  Mitanni 
in  Mesopotamia,  and  farther  eastward  and  northward 
Assyria,  Babylon,  and  Elam.  These  all  had  their  own 
systems  of  writing  and  kept  records  of  some  sort.  In 
the  ruins  of  this  period  we  find  tin,  apparently  from 
Central  Europe,  and  amber  from  the  Baltic,  evidence 
of  trade  relations  with  those  regions  through  the  Black 
Sea,  the  Danube,  and  the  Vistula;  lapis  lazuli  from 
Bactria,  and  jade  and  cobalt  from  China.1  It  was  the 
summit  of  the  civilization  of  the  copper  age. 

At  that  period  all  of  the  country  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  the  Persian  mountains  and  from  the  Red 
Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf  up  to  the  Taurus  mountains 
and  beyond  them  into  Asia  Minor  was  thoroughly 
Semitized,  speaking  a  Semitic  tongue  and  using  the 
Babylonian  script,   although  dominated  in  part  by 


1  In  one  store  of  a  maker  of  votives  in  a  booth  outside  the  en- 
closure of  the  temple  at  Nippur  of  a  date  about  1400  B.  C,  I 
found  amber  from  the  Baltic,  lapis  lazuli  from  Bactria,  magnesite 
from  Euboea,  bronze,  alloyed  with  tin,  probably  from  Saxony 
or  Cornwall,  malachite  and  turquoise,  apparently  from  Sinai, 
and  glass  run  in  moulds  as  inscribed  axe  heads  and  colored  to 
imitate  lapis  lazuli  with  cobalt  from  China. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  27 

rulers  of  other  origin,  the  Egyptians  on  the  west,  in 
Palestine  and  Syria,  the  Hittites,  the  Mitanni,  and  the 
Cassites  in  southern  Asia  Minor,  Mesopotamia,  and 
Babylonia.  This  Semitic  stock,  it  should  be  added, 
was  not  Aramaean,  but,  to  use  the  term  somewhat 
inaccurately,  Amorite,  the  stock  from  which  derive 
the  Phoenicians  and  the  Canaanites.  The  relations 
of  the  Semites  of  Palestine  to  Egypt,  as  a  result  of  the 
conquests  of  the  Thutmoses,  the  eighteenth  Egyptian 
dynasty,  were  intimate,  and  in  the  reigns  of  the  later 
kings  of  that  dynasty  certainly  friendly.  Many 
Semites  brought  into  Egypt  as  slaves  became  a  little 
later  tax-paying  serfs,  on  a  par  with  the  ordinary  Egjfp- 
tian  fellaheen.  Syrians  and  Palestinians  are  repre- 
sented on  the  monuments  and  inscriptions  as  coming 
and  going  freely,  as  settling  in  Egypt,  and  even  occu- 
pying a  position  of  influence  there.  The  internal  con- 
ditions of  this  period,  the  centring  of  all  power  in  the 
hands  of  an  autocratic  king,  are  those  depicted  in  the 
story  of  Joseph  in  the  book  of  Genesis. 

At  that  time,  as  I  have  already  noted,  a  people  or 
district  in  central  Palestine  was  known  to  the  Egyp- 
tians as  Jacob-el  and  another  as  Joseph-el,  and  to  this 
day  there  exist  in  the  valley  of  Shechem  (the  name  of 
which  place  occurs,  by  the  way,  in  Egyptian  records) 
eastward  of  the  present  town  of  Nablous,  as  the  valley 
opens  out  into  the  plain  of  Makhna,  the  well  of  Jacob 
and  the  tomb  of  Joseph,  the  traditions  of  which  go 
back  to  a  period  antedating  the  conquest  and  occupa- 
tion of  the  country  by  the  Hebrews.  Just  before  the 
war  there  was  discovered,  close  to  this  traditional  tomb 


\ 

28  Bible  and  Spade 

of  Joseph,  a  brick  tomb,  quite  unlike  all  tombs  hereto- 
fore discovered  in  Palestine,  containing,  with  the  bones 
of  a  man,  utensils,  and  armor,  and  weapons,  including 
a  dagger,  a  coat  of  mail,  and  a  truncheon  of  bronze, 
the  dagger  and  truncheon  enamelled  and  inlaid  with 
precious  metals  in  the  unmistakable  style  of  the  eigh- 
teenth Egyptian  dynasty  of  the  fifteenth  century 
B.  C.  Apparently  it  was  the  tomb  of  an  Egyptian 
official  of  high  rank.  While  the  exact  bearing  of  all 
this  may  not  yet  be  altogether  plain,  it  shows  at  least 
that  there  lies  historic  truth  behind  the  story  of  Joseph 
in  the  book  of  Genesis. 

Certain  origins  of  the  Hebrew  religion  can  also  be 
traced  back  to  the  time  of  the  eighteenth  Egyptian 
dynasty.  The  name  Moses  is  unmistakably  Egyp- 
tian, the  same  which  appears  in  composition  in  the 
names  of  the  earlier  and  greatest  kings  of  that  dynasty, 
Ahmoses  and  Thutmoses,  and  which  is  common  in 
inscriptions  throughout  that  entire  dynasty.  The  Ark 
has  its  closest  affinities  with  Egyptian  ritual  use,  and 
the  monotheistic  or  quasi-monotheistic  basis  of  Mosa- 
ism  suggests  strongly  the  monotheistic  or  quasi-mono- 
theistic religion  of  the  reformer  king,  Amenophis  IV  or 
Ikhnaton,  with  whom,  and  as  a  consequence  of  which, 
that  dynasty  came  to  an  end.  This  reformer,  it  will 
be  remembered,  received  his  education  at,  and  derived 
his  inspiration  from,  Heliopolis,  or  On,  and  there  also, 
according  to  the  Hebrew  account,  Moses  was  trained 
in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians.  This  reformer 
king,  Amenhotep  IV,  it  will  be  remembered,  changed 
his  religion  from  the  worship  of  Amen,  the  great  god 


Photograph  by  Prof.  Elihu  Grant. 

Jacob's  Pillar  from  below. 

Behind  and  above  these  stones,  northward,  the  hill  rises  to  a  crest, 
called  anciently  Jacob's  Ladder. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  29 

of  Thebes,  to  that  of  Aton,  the  sun  disk,  more  espe- 
cially characteristic  of  Memphis.  Similarly  he  changed 
his  name  from  Amenhotep  (Amenophis)  to  Akhenaton 
or  Ikhnaton.  At  the  same  time  he  broke  with  the 
ancient  conventions  in  art,  and  in  social  and  religious 
etiquette.  Basing  on  the  Memphis  worship  of  Aton, 
he  sought  to  make  a  purer  and  quasi-monotheistic 
religion  out  of  that  worship,  and  to  have  the  freer  hand 
to  do  so,  abandoning  Thebes,  he  built  himself  a  new 
capital,  called  Akhetaton,  after  the  name  of  his  god, 
the  present  ruin  heaps  of  Amarna,  where  the  tablets 
above  referred  to  were  discovered.  After  his  death  a 
reaction  set  in,  the  priests  of  Amen  at  Thebes  gained 
the  upper  hand,  and  persecuted  the  Atonites  as  Ikh- 
naton had  persecuted  the  Amenites.  Ikhnaton's  new 
capital  was  destroyed,  and  Thebes  again  became  the 
capital,  and  Amen's  religion  and  Amen's  priests  ruled 
Egypt  as  never  before.  Ikhnaton's  statues  and  Ikh- 
naton's inscriptions  were  defaced  and  effaced,  and  an 
effort  was  made  to  blot  out  all  memory  of  him  from 
the  land.  Enough  remains,  however,  to  enable  pres- 
ent-day scholars,  as  the  result  of  their  excavations  and 
decipherments  of  inscriptions,  to  restore  in  its  main 
features  the  history  of  his  reform  and  the  doctrines 
of  his  religion.  The  latter  was  strongly  monotheistic 
in  its  tendencies,  as  witness  the  following  from  a 
"Hymn  in  Praise  of  Aton": 


"How  manifold  are  all  thy  work* ! 
They  are  hidden  from  before  us, 
O  thou  sole  god  whose  powers  no  other  possesseth"; 


30  Bible  and  Spade 

which  might  equally  as  well  constitute  part  of  some 
Hebrew  ritual  (ef.  Ps.  104 :  24). 

Still  more  striking  in  its  monotheism  is  the  follow- 
ing from  a  hymn  to  the  Sun-god: 

"  Who  determines  his  own  birth, 


The  primordial  being,  who  himself  made  himself, 
Who  beholds  that  which  he  has  made, 
Sole  lord  taking  captive  all  lands  every  day, 
As  one  beholding  them  that  walk  therein; 
Shining  in  the  sky  a  being  as  the  sun." l 

But  to  return  to  the  fall  of  the  Egyptian  empire  in 
Syria  and  the  relation  to  that  of  the  Hebrews.  It  was 
when  that  empire  was  at  the  height  of  its  power  and 
splendor,  during  the  reign  of  Amenhotep  III,  the  Mag- 
nificent, that  its  decadence  commenced.  The  letters 
from  Egyptian  governors  and  subject  kings  and  allies 
found  at  Amarna  tell  the  tale.  New  folk  movements 
were  evidently  in  progress  in  the  north.  In  some  con- 
nection with  these  the  Hittites  poured  down  from 
Asia  Minor  over  the  Taurus  into  northern  Syria,  oust- 
ing Amorites  and  destroying  or  amalgamating  their 
states.  At  the  same  time  appear  Aramaean  tribes  and 
peoples,  pushed  out  of  their  abode  to  the  north  and 
northeast.  These  press  into  Syria  and  Palestine  and 
also  into  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  the  Sutu  and  Kha- 
biru,  or  Hebrews.    These  Hebrews,  it  must  be  under- 

1  Translations  from  Breasted's  Religion  and  Thought  in  An- 
cient Egypt. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  31 

stood,  were  not  the  Hebrews  in  our  ordinary  restricted 
sense  of  the  term,  but  the  whole  stock  of  which  our 
Hebrews  were  but  a  part,  Moab,  Amnion,  Edom, 
Amalek,  and  certain  of  the  nomadic  or  Bedouin  peo- 
ples of  the  desert  and  the  desert  border.1  The  gene- 
alogies given  in  Genesis  enable  us  to  determine,  in 
general,  the  order  in  which  they  acquired  settled  abodes 
and  became  nations,  as  also  their  general  affinities  to 
one  another  and  to  Israel. 

It  was,  however,  under  the  son  of  Amenhotep  III, 
Amenhotep  IV,  or  Ikhnaton,  that  the  danger  from  these 
invasions  became  imminent.  He  was  a  pacifist  of  the 
most  extreme  type,  an  anti-imperialist,  concerned  only 
with  the  internal  affairs  of  Egypt,  and  of  those  almost 
exclusively  with  spiritual  affairs.  In  the  midst  of  the 
pressing  dangers  consequent  on  the  attacks  of  external 
foes,  he  reduced  the  Egyptian  army  to  a  peace  footing, 
and  failed,  if  he  did  not  refuse,  to  give  assistance  to  his 
hard-pressed  allies,  subject  kings,  and  governors.  The 
letters  to  him  found  at  Amarna  depict  the  situation 
and  his  attitude  vividly.  One  of  his  vassals  from 
Syria  writes:  "Verily  thy  father  did  not  march  forth 
nor  inspect  the  lands  of  the  vassal  princes."  Ap- 
parently Amenophis  the  Magnificent  preferred  to  send 
his  generals,  while  he  enjoyed  his  magnificence  at 
home,  unlike  that  doughty  warrior  emperor  who  cre- 
ated the  Asiatic  empire,  Thutmose  III.    But  worse 

1  Of  these  we  commonly  speak  as  Arabs,  which  is  correct  in  so  far 
as  we  use  Arab  as  a  term  to  denote  a  Bedouin  condition  of  life, 
but  not  in  its  linguistic  or  ethnological  sense.  The  Ishmaelites 
and  other  Bedouins  of  the  Sinaitic  and  neighboring  regions  were 
Amorite  or  Aramaean  linguistically  and  in  the  main  ethnologically. 


32  Bible  and  Spade 

was  to  come:  "When  thou,"  his  pacifist  son,  "ascend- 
edst  the  throne,  Abdashirta's  sons  took  the  king's  land 
for  themselves.  Creatures  of  the  King  of  Mitanni  are 
they,  and  of  the  King  of  Babylon,  and  of  the  King  of 
the  Hittites."  Those  three,  Hittites  of  Asia  Minor, 
Mitanni  of  Mesopotamia,  and  Cassites  of  Babylonia, 
states  or  dynasties  of  supposed  Indo-European  origin, 
are  making  common  cause  against  the  Egyptian  em- 
pire in  Syria,  the  whole  Amorite  or  native  Syrian 
princes  of  the  older  Semitic  stock  are  seizing  the  op- 
portunity to  declare  their  independence  and  annex 
such  other  territory  as  they  could,  pretending  now  to 
be  on  one  side,  now  on  another,  so  that  the  inefficient 
Egyptian  foreign  office  was  as  likely  to  support  foe  as 
friend.  According  to  a  letter  from  the  important  town 
of  Tunip  this  had  then  been  going  on  for  twenty  years, 
and  in  this  time  no  help  had  come  from  Egypt.  In 
the  south  the  conditions  were  similar.  Troops  of 
Khabiri,  the  Aramsean  invaders,  took  service  as  merce- 
naries with  Egyptian  governors  and  subject  kings 
alike.  The  various  petty  kings  accuse  one  another 
of  treasonable  purpose,  each  professes  to  be  loyal  to 
Egypt  and  calls  to  the  Pharaoh  for  help  against  the 
other  and  his  Hebrew  allies. 

The  Pharaoh  seems  to  have  turned  all  authority 
over  to  an  official  of  Semitic  race,  Dudu  or  David  by 
name,  much  as  in  the  story  contained  in  Genesis 
Pharaoh  turned  authority  over  to  Joseph;  and  here  we 
have  evidence  of  the  position  which  Semites  of  the  old 
Amorite  stock,  Jacob,  held  in  Egypt  during  the  eigh- 
teenth dynasty,  which  was  the  friendly  Pharaoh  of 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  33 

the  Bible  story.  Abdkhiba1  of  Jerusalem,  whose 
letters  are  among  the  most  interesting  and  illuminat- 
ing in  the  Amarna  archives,  writes  to  this  David, 
"the  scribe  of  my  lord  the  king,"  telling  him  to  "bring 
these  words  plainly  before  my  lord  the  king,"  that 
"the  whole  land  of  my  lord  the  king  is  going  to  ruin." 
Many  of  the  Palestinians  had  forsaken  their  towns, 
and  taken  to  the  hills,  or  sought  refuge  in  Egypt, 
where  the  Egytian  officer  in  charge  of  some  of  them 
said  of  them:  "They  have  been  destroyed  and  their 
town  laid  waste — their  countries  are  starving,  they 
live  like  goats  of  the  mountain."  We  are  told  "that 
a  few  of  the  Asiatics,  who  knew  not  how  they  should 
live,  have  come"  seeking  for  domicile  in  Pharaoh's 
land,  after  a  manner  known  from  the  time  of  Pharaoh's 
"father's  fathers."  The  Pharaoh  orders  them  to  be 
settled  in  a  region  where  they  might  protect  the  borders 
of  his  land,  just  as  we  are  told  that  when  Jacob  and 
his  children  came  down  into  Egypt  they  were  settled 
in  the  land  of  Goshen.  The  reference  in  these  letters 
to  the  fact  that  Asiatics  had  sought  refuge  in  Egypt 
on  account  of  famine  in  earlier  times  is  borne  out  by 
inscriptions  of  those  periods,  which  tell  us  of  such 
famines,  and  one,  at  least,  tells  us  of  a  seven-year 
famine  in  Egypt,  like  that  described  in  the  Joseph  story. 
With  Ikhnaton's  death  came,  as  already  stated,  the 
counter-revolution  in  Egypt.  The  priests  of  Thebes, 
whom  he  had  attempted  to  depose  from  their  high 

1  Note  the  compound  name,  half  Semitic,  half  Hittite,  and  com- 
pare with  this  Ezekiel's  statement  of  the  composite  Amorite- 
Hittite  ancestry  of  Jerusalem,  16 : 3;  c/.  also  Gen.  25 :  34. 


34  Bible  and  Spade 

eminence,  and  whose  religion  he  had  persecuted,  re- 
gained their  power  and  destroyed  Ikhnaton's  city, 
which  has  remained  desert  to  this  day;  and  hence 
the  discovery  of  these  present  archives.  The  land 
naturally  fell  into  confusion.  Egypt  lost  not  only 
Syria,  but  also  Palestine,  only  retaining  a  shadowy 
claim  on  the  latter.  This  was  the  period  when  Moab 
and  Ammon  became  nations,  occupying  the  territory 
east  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Jordan,  the  country 
known  as  Rutenu  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions,  that 
is  Lotan  or  Lot,1  whence  Moab  and  Ammon,  after  a 
fashion  similar  everywhere,  became  the  children  of 
Lot,  just  as  the  Israelites  were  later  to  become  the 
children  of  Jacob,  with  Isaac  and  Abraham  as  grand- 
parent and  great-grandparent.  Between  these  two 
Hebrew  or  Khabiru  nations,  Moab  and  Ammon,  there 
remained,  according  to  the  Israelite  account,  a  rem- 
nant of  the  older  Amorite  peoples,  whom  the  Israelites 
later  conquered,  thus  locating  themselves  between 
their  kindred  peoples,  Moab  and  Ammon.  We  have 
seen  how  Asiatics  poured  into  the  Egyptian  border- 
lands during  the  Hebrew  invasions.  It  appears  from 
the  Bible  story  that  at  some  period  before  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  dynasty  Aramaean  ancestors  of 
Israel  did  the  same  thing.  We  have,  however,  no 
Egyptian  record  of  that  date  which  mentions  them 
by  name.  The  name  Israel  first  appears  in  an  inscrip- 
tion of  Merneptah  of  the  succeeding  nineteenth  dy- 
nasty, who  also  tells  us  of  Edomites  (from  the  descrip- 

*L  of  Semite  names  appears  as  r  in  Egyptain,  as  in  reverse 
fashion  the  Chinese  convert  our  r  into  1. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  35 

tion,  I  fancy,  they  were  rather  what  we  commonly 
call  Amalekites),  who  were  a  part  or  offshoot  of  Edom 
(cf.  Gen.  36),  coming  into  Egypt  in  his  day  in  precisely 
the  way  described  above. 

With  the  nineteenth  dynasty,  Egypt  comes  out  of 
the  state  of  confusion  into  which  it  had  been  thrown 
by  the  reform  and  counter-reform  and  revolution  of 
the  closing  days  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  and  under 
a  new  and  strong  king,  Seti,  the  first  king  of  that  dy- 
nasty, it  begins  to  reassert  its  suzerainty  in  Palestine 
and  Syria.  In  the  latter  country  the  Hittites  had  by 
this  time  established  a  strong  kingdom,  and  after  over- 
running Palestine  the  Egyptians  found  themselves 
face  to  face  with  an  empire  quite  equal  to  their  own. 
Seti's  son,  Ramses  II,  has  left  us  an  account  of  his  wars 
with  the  Hittites,  from  which  we  learn  that  in  a  great 
battle  fought  near  Kadesh  on  the  Orontes  there  were 
in  the  army  of  the  Hittite  king  contingents  from  as  far 
north  as  Cilicia  and  Bedouin  elements  from  the  south. 
Apparently  Hittites  and  Amorites  and  Aramaeans  were 
all  fighting  together  under  his  standard.  The  battle 
in  which,  through  bad  strategy,  Ramses  almost  suffered 
defeat  was  barely  redeemed  by  his  personal  valor. 
He  claims  the  victory.  It  seems  in  fact  to  have  been 
a  drawn  battle  in  which  both  sides  suffered  heavily. 
Later  a  treaty  was  concluded  with  the  Hittite  king, 
Hattusil,  a  copy  of  which  in  Egyptian  was  found  on 
Ramses's  monuments,  and  a  corresponding  copy  in  the 
Hittite  language  has  recently  been  found  at  the  Hittite 
capital,  known  as  Hatti  City,  the  modern  Boghaz  Keui 
in  northern  Central  Asia  Minor. 


36  Bible  and  Spade 

It  seems  clear  from  the  story  of  Exodus  that  this 
Ramses  II  was  the  Pharaoh  of  the  oppression.  We 
are  told  that  the  Israelites  were  compelled  by  the 
Pharaoh  to  labor  at  building  store  cities  in  Goshen, 
Ramses  and  Pithom.  One  of  these,  Pithom,  has  in 
fact  been  discovered,  and  proved  to  be  a  construction 
of  Ramses.  One  can  well  see  the  necessity  which  he 
had,  on  one  hand,  of  labor  for  his  vast  undertakings 
and,  on  the  other,  of  holding  down  and  rendering 
powerless  the  large  Asiatic  element  which  in  previous 
reigns  had  been  brought  into  Egypt,  and  which  would 
naturally  be  sympathetic  with  the  enemies  in  Asia 
whom  Ramses  was  fighting.  It  is  more  difficult  to 
determine  the  date  of  the  Exodus  and  the  name  of  the 
Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus,  for  the  Israelite  record  gives  us 
no  names  of  the  Pharaohs,  but  only  the  title  Pharaoh, 
which  belongs  alike  to  all.  The  tendency  of  the  latter 
years  had  been  to  assume  as  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus 
Merneptah,  Ramses's  successor,  but  in  1896  there  was 
discovered  an  inscription  of  Merneptah  regarding  what 
appears  to  have  been  a  punitive  expedition  into  Pal- 
estine. It  reads  as  follows,  translating  freely  the 
names  or  designations  of  the  people  mentioned:  "No 
one  among  the  foreign  nations  raises  his  head.  The 
Libyans  are  destroyed.  The  Hittites  are  at  peace. 
Canaan  is  captive  in  all  its  quarters.  Ashkelon  is 
carried  into  captivity.  Gezer  is  taken.  Yenoam  is 
annihilated.  Israel  is  destroyed;  its  crops  are  no  more. 
South  Palestine  has  become  like  a  widow.  All  the 
lands  are  in  peace  together.  Their  leader  has  been 
conquered  by  King  Merneptah,  who,  like  the  sun, 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  37 

gives  light  each  day."  A  boastful  proclamation  of 
general  victory  over  all  foes,  and  a  truly  royal  and 
Egyptian  exaggeration!  But,  however  much  it  may 
be  exaggerated,  and  however  false  may  be  some  of  the 
claims  made  by  him,  the  important  point  is  that  Mer- 
neptah  mentions  Israel  as  being  in  his  day  among  the 
occupants  of  southern  Palestine;  apparently,  there- 
fore, we  must  place  the  period  of  the  Exodus  a  little 
earlier  than  Merneptah,  somewhere  in  the  long  reign 
of  Ramses  II,  who  was  also  the  Pharaoh  of  the  oppres- 
sion. 

We  have  in  Hebrew  tradition  one  indication  of  the 
date  of  the  Exodus,  from  the  period  in  which  records 
had  begun  to  be  kept  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah.  In 
I  Kings,  6th  chapter,  and  1st  verse,  we  are  told  that 
"in  the  480th  year  after  the  children  of  Israel  were 
come  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  in  the  4th  year  of 
Solomon's  reign  over  Israel,  in  the  second  month/' 
he  began  to  build  the  temple.  Now  he  began  to  build 
the  temple  about  950  B.  C.  Counting  back  from  that 
date  480  years,  we  have  the  year  1430,  which  would 
carry  us  back  long  before  the  time  of  Amenophis  III, 
in  whose  reign  we  find  the  earliest  mention,  in  the 
Amarna  letters,  of  Hebrews. 

In  the  year  1882  there  was  discovered,  in  the  city 
of  Sippar  in  Babylonia,  a  record  dated  in  a  similar 
manner.  Nabonidus,  the  last  Babylonian  king,  who, 
like  Ikhnaton  of  Egypt,  was  a  dreamer,  a  religious 
reformer,  and  a  pacifist,  brought  his  army  from  Gaza 
and  set  it,  not  to  prepare  to  resist  the  aggressions  of 
Cyrus,  but  to  excavate  Sippar,  the  temple  of  which  he 


38  Bible  and  Spade 

desired  to  restore.  There  he  tells  us  that  they  un- 
earthed the  record  of  the  great  king,  Naram  Sin,  which 
no  one  before  him  had  ever  seen,  since  it  had  been  de- 
posited there  3,200  years  before.  Curiously,  the  schol- 
ars who  were  all  so  suspicious  of  Hebrew  and  Bible 
dates,  and  who  had  quite  thrown  away  the  480  years 
from  Solomon  to  the  Exodus,  accepted  this  date  with- 
out question,  and  with  one  accord  Assyriologists  de- 
clared that  Naram  Sin  reigned  in  Akkad,  the  capital 
of  which  was  Sippar,  3750  B.  C,  and  his  father  Sargon, 
the  great  half-mythical  king  of  old  Semitic  Babylonian 
story,  they  consequently  placed  about  3800  B.  C. 
These  they  regarded  as  ascertained  dates,  from  which 
they  proceeded  confidently  to  count  backward  and 
forward.  I  believe  that  for  a  good  while  I  was  the 
only  scholar  who  protested  this  dating.  I  noted  that 
in  the  case  of  the  Babylonian,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Hebrew,  record  each  number,  480  and  3200,  was  a  mul- 
tiple of  40,  which  is  used  continually  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  indicate  a  generation.  I  suspected  that  in 
the  case  of  the  Babylonian  date  what  had  been  done 
by  the  scribe  was  to  count  the  number  of  kings  in  the 
king's  lists  which  he  had  before  him,  i.  e.,  the  number 
of  royal  generations  from  Nabonidus  to  Naram  Sin. 
He  found  80  names  of  kings,  and  multiplying  80  by  40, 
the  number  of  years  to  a  generation,  he  obtained  the 
number  3200.  But  in  reality  a  generation  is  much 
shorter  than  40  years.  Taking  all  the  king  lists  of 
Israel,  Judah,  Assyria,  and  Babylonia,  which  were 
then  available,  and  averaging  the  reigns  of  the  kings 
in  those  lists,  I  found  that  the  average  royal  genera- 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  39 

tion  was  considerably  less  than  thirty  years,  and  sug- 
gested accordingly  that  this  number  should  be  reduced 
by  about  1,000  years,  and  that  the  real  date  of  Sargon 
was  therefore  more  nearly  2,800  than  3,800,  which 
seemed  to  me  also  to  fit  in  better  with  what  we  knew 
from  other  sources.  When  I  came  to  excavate  old 
Nippur,  I  found  in  fact  that  the  remains  of  Sargon  lay, 
without  intervening  strata  (or  with  almost  no  inter- 
vening strata),  immediately  below  those  of  Ur  Gur, 
king  of  Ur,  whose  date  was  nearer  the  middle  of  the 
third  than  of  the  fourth  millennium.  To-day  all 
scholars  are  agreed  that  Sargon  belongs  not  in  the 
fourth,  but  in  the  third  millennium,  and  the  latest 
authorities  date  him  about  2600  or  2650  B.  C,  150  or 
200  years  later  than  I  had  suggested  as  his  earliest 
possible  date. 

Apply  the  same  method  to  the  Hebrew  date  recorded 
in  I  Kings,  and  I  think  we  shall  obtain  approxi- 
mately the  date  for  the  Exodus  which  I  have  suggested. 
If  you  will  regard  the  480  years  as  meaning  twelve 
generations,  and  suppose  that  the  scribes  of  Solomon 
who  have  left  us  this  record  had  lists  of  some  sort 
from  which  they  counted  out  twelve  generations,  and 
will  then  reduce  those  generations  in  the  manner  in 
which  I  suggested  in  the  case  of  the  Babylonian  in- 
scriptions, counting  each  generation  as  not  forty  but 
between  twenty  and  thirty  years,  you  will  have,  in- 
stead of  480,  approximately  330  years,  and  the  date  of 
the  Exodus  would  fall  about  1280,  in  the  earlier  part 
of  the  reign  of  Ramses  II.  This,  as  you  will  see,  will 
fall  in  line  with  Merneptah's  inscription  also. 


40  Bible  and  Spade 

I  called  attention  earlier  to  the  fact  that  about 
1400  B.  C.  the  civilization  of  the  copper  age  had 
reached  its  climax,  and  that  at  that  time  we  begin  to 
find  signs  of  an  approaching  downfall.  Movements 
in  the  north,  of  nations  of  the  same  stock  as  our  own 
ancestors,  and  in  the  east  and  northeast  movements 
of  peoples  of  other  stock  from  Central  Asia,  were  exert- 
ing pressure  on  the  civilized  and  semicivilized  lands 
in  Italy,  Greece,  and  Asia  Minor.  It  was  probably 
partly  this  which  led  the  Hittites  to  cross  the  Taurus 
mountains  and  invade  Syria.  In  the  time  of  Ramses 
II  we  find  Sardinians  from  the  Italian  region  serving 
as  mercenaries,  just  as  we  saw  that  the  Hebrews 
served  as  mercenaries  for  and  against  the  Egyptians 
in  the  time  of  Ikhnaton.  These  folk  movements  in- 
creased in  force  and  volume,  until  about  1200  B.  C. 
we  are  plunged  in  Cimmerian  gloom,  dark  ages  com- 
parable to  those  which  followed  the  movements  of  the 
barbarian  hordes  that  overthrew  the  Roman  empire 
in  the  post-Christian  period.  All  the  world  seemed 
afoot.  This  was  the  period  of  the  Dorian  invasion  of 
Greek  legend,  which  brought  the  Greeks  into  Greece 
and  overthrew  the  Mycensean-iEgean  civilization. 
Egyptian  inscriptions  of  King  Ramses  III,  of  the 
twentieth  dynasty,  show  us  hordes  of  Sardinians, 
Philistines,  and  tribes  from  Crete  and  the  ^Egean  isl- 
ands and  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor,  pouring  down  by 
sea  and  by  land  on  the  Egyptian  coast,  and  into  Syria 
and  Palestine.  He  claims  to  have  met  and  defeated 
those  hordes,  but  if  he  succeeded  in  repelling  them 
from  his  own  borders,  it  is  clear  that  he  failed  to  expel 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  41 

them  from  Palestine  and  Syria.  The  great  Hittite 
empire  which  had  lasted  for  200  years  was  blotted 
out.  The  Philistines  and  their  kindred  tribes  whom 
we  find  mentioned,  some  in  the  Hebrew,  some  in  the 
Egyptian  records,  gained  possession  of  the  Palestinian 
coastland  southward  of  Phoenicia.  Farther  eastward 
the  kingdom  of  Mitanni  in  Mesopotamia  was  over- 
thrown and  the  Cassite  rule  over  Babylonia  came  to 
an  end.  The  invaders  in  those  eastern  regions  were 
Aramaeans,  who  were  being  pushed  out  of  their  homes 
in  Asia  Minor  by  invasions  of  Asianic  hordes,  as  the 
kindred  Amorites  had  been  pressed  out  at  the  time  of 
the  invasions  of  the  Hittites,  and  were  pouring  south- 
ward in  many  tribes.  We  can  get  few  details  of  this 
period.  We  know  surely  only  what  went  before  and 
what  followed  after.  This  was  the  period  when  the 
Hebrews,  moving  out  of  the  south  land  of  Palestine, 
settled  themselves  first  in  the  country  between  Moab 
and  Ammon,  conquering  the  Amorites  who  were  in 
possession,  and  from  there,  after  how  long  a  period 
we  do  not  know,  invaded  Palestine.  Partly  from  the 
later  writings  of  their  historians,  partly  from  their 
folk-lore  and  traditions,  recorded  especially  in  the 
names,  locations,  and  relationships  of  their  tribes,  we 
know  that  it  was  the  elder  branch,  the  children  of 
Leah,  who  first  settled  eastward  of  Jordan,  as  Reuben, 
the  oldest  son,  and  who  also  first  crossed  the  Jordan 
into  Canaan  in  the  south,  as  Judah,  the  second  son, 
and  in  the  centre,  as  Simeon  and  Levi,  came  to  grief 
at  Shechem,1  those  tribes  losing  henceforth  their  tribal 
1  Gen.  35. 


42  Bible  and  Spade 

existence  and  identity.  Reuben,  the  elder  son,  that 
is  the  first  one  settled,  remained  in  the  region  first 
conquered,  which  is  the  meaning  in  fact  of  the  state- 
ment in  the  genealogy  that  Reuben  was  the  eldest 
son.  Judah  pushed  across  the  Jordan,  just  north  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  following  the  road  toward  Bethlehem, 
and  ultimately  united  with  kindred  peoples,  Calebites 
and  Kenizzites,  at  and  about  Hebron  and  southward, 
to  form  the  great  historical  tribe  of  Judah.  In  the 
north,  by  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  the  tribes  of  Zebulun 
and  Issachar  entered  western  Palestine,  settling  in  that 
plain  and  in  lower  Galilee.  To  these  children  of  Leah, 
full-blooded  Aramaeans,  were  joined  in  Canaan  two 
peoples  of  the  older  Amorite  stock,  already  in  the  coun- 
try, Gad  in  Gilead  by  Reuben,  and  Asher1  northward, 
by  Zebulun  and  Issachar,  which  is  the  meaning  of 
the  story  in  the  Bible  that  these  were  children,  not  of 
Jacob's  wife  Leah,  but  of  the  concubine  whom  she  gave 
to  Jacob.  The  second  invasion  was  that  of  the  Joseph- 
ite  tribes,  of  whom  Manasseh  was  the  elder,  that  is, 
he  first  attained  the  settled  state,  pushing  in  to  the 
north  of  Reuben,  and  sharing  with  Gad,  the  son  of 
his  stepmother  Leah's  handmaid,  i.  e.)  an  Amorite 
people  adopted  into  Israel,  Gilead,  beyond  Jordan. 
Later  they  pushed  across  the  Jordan,  and  as  Ephraim 
and  half  Manasseh  occupied  central  Palestine,  first 
Bethel  and  Shiloh,  then  Shechem,  and  finally  all  the 
country  northward  to  the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
i.  e.,  the  ancient  land  of  Joseph,  whence  they  became 

1  This  is  confirmed  by  the  mention  in  earlier  Egyptian  inscrip- 
tions of  Asher  as  inhabiting  that  region. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  43 

sons  of  Joseph,  as  Moab  and  Ammon  became  children 
of  Lot.1  Benjamin  was  born  in  the  land,  so  the  story- 
tells us.  His  name  means  son  of  the  south,  he  being 
the  southern  segment  of  the  Rachelite  tribes,  and  his 
mother  was  buried  near  Bethlehem.  To  these  tribes 
of  pure  Aramaean  stock,  the  children  of  Rachel,  were 
added,  as  in  the  case  of  the  other  branch  of  Israel, 
the  children  of  Leah,  two  Canaanite  tribes,  i.  e., 
Canaanite  peoples  who  accepted  the  religion  of  the 
God  of  Israel  and  so  became  part  of  Israel.  One  of 
these  was  Dan,  whose  name,  as  well  as  the  name  of 
his  great  hero,  Samson,  or  sun  man,  indicates  that  the 
tribe  had  originally  worshipped  the  Sun-^od,  just  as 
the  tribe  of  Gad  had  worshipped  the  god  of  Fortune. 
Dan  represents  the  farthest  extension  southwestward 
of  the  Josephites.  He  dwelt  on  the  border  of  the  Phil- 
istine plain,  and  his  principal  town  was  Beth  Shemesh, 
House  of  the  Sun-god.  Here  the  Danites  were  exposed 
to  the  onslaughts  of  the  Philistines,  by  whom  they 
were  ultimately  dispossessed.  Then  they  removed  to 
the  extreme  north,  as  we  are  told  in  Judges,  and  made 
a  new  settlement  just  beneath  Mount  Hermon,  where 
they  established  the  temple  of  Dan,  with  the  descend- 
ants of  Moses  as  its  priests.  In  that  same  region,  and 
southward  on  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  lay  also 
the  other  tribe  of  Canaanite  descent,  which  was  ab- 
sorbed in  the  children  of  Rachel,  namely  Naphtali. 

1  Israel,  on  the  other  hand,  was  identified  with  Jacob,  and 
Jacob  was  made  son  and  grandson  of  Isaac  and  Abraham  respec- 
tively; all  of  these  being  methods  of  recounting  tribal  and  na- 
tional history  and  connections  which  may  be  paralleled  from  many 
sources. 


44  Bible  and  Spade 

But  to  return  to  that  with  which  I  began,  and  which 
is  the  real  topic  of  this  lecture,  the  race  history  of  the 
Hebrews  and  the  site  of  the  Aramaean  homeland:  He- 
brew tradition,  as  represented  by  the  story  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  patriarchs  to  Mesopotamia;  as  represented 
by  that  ancient  liturgy  of  Shechem  contained  in  the 
book  of  Deuteromomy,  which  commences:  "A  wan- 
dering Aramaean  was  my  father "  (26 : 5) ;  as  repre- 
sented in  the  prophecies  of  Amos,  who  speaks  of  Kir  as 
the  homeland  of  Israel;  as  represented  by  those  early 
traditions  contained  in  the  location  of  Eden,  in  the 
location  of  the  resting-place  of  the  Ark  and  the  home  of 
Noah;  as  represented  by  the  genealogies  of  Genesis — 
Hebrew  tradition  as  represented  by  all  of  these,  points 
to  the  region  which  we  now  know  as  Armenia,  by  the 
sources  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  and  southward 
from  that  down  the  western  slopes  of  the  Persian 
mountains,  as  the  homeland  of  Israel's  first  ancestors, 
and  it  also  points  to  an  Aramaean  origin  for  the  He- 
brew.1 

1  As  we  know  the  Hebrews,  however,  they  did  not  speak  Ara- 
maean but  Amorite,  a  dialect  identical  with  that  of  the  Canaanites 
and  close  of  kin  to  Phoenician.  They  and  the  kindred  Khabiru 
peoples  were  profoundly  affected  by  the  Canaanites,  a  related 
people,  but  one  vastly  more  advanced  in  civilization  and  culture, 
and,  a  common  phenomenon  in  similar  circumstances  the  world 
over,  dropped  Aramaean  and  adopted  Canaanite,  modified, 
however,  by  their  Hebrew  origin.  That  is  the  language  which 
we  know  as  Hebrew.  Much  later,  long  after  the  Exile,  when 
Aramaean  had  become  the  lingua  Franca  of  western  Asia,  the 
Hebrews  with  all  the  neighboring  peoples  dropped  what  had 
by  that  time  become  their  native  tongue,  once  more  reverting 
to  Aramaean.  So  some  of  the  later  parts  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  written  in  Aramaean  (frequently  translated  Syrian,  and  in  the 
King  James'  version  of  Daniel  Chaldean),  which  was  also  the 
language  of  Palestine  in  the  time  of  Christ. 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  45 

Assyrian  and  Babylonian  inscriptions  confirm  the 
Armenian  origin  of  the  Aramaeans.  They  are  first 
named  in  the  latter  centuries  of  the  second  millen- 
nium, appearing  on  the  scene  as  a  part  of  that  great 
upheaval  of  which  I  have  spoken  as  occurring  then. 
These  inscriptions  represent  them  as  pressing  down  on 
both  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  from  the  mountainous 
regions  to  the  northwest,  north  and  east  of  Assyria. 
Shortly  we  find  them  in  possession  of  Mesopotamia 
and  pouring  into  northern  Syria.  This  movement 
downward  from  Syria  to  the  Persian  mountains  with, 
apparently,  Armenia  as  its  centre,  continues  for  the 
next  600  years  or  more.  The  annals  of  the  Assyrian 
king,  Ashur-nazir-pal,  give  us  very  full  information 
with  regard  to  the  Aramaean  states  in  his  day,  the  first 
half  of  the  ninth  century.  Asianic  hordes  of  some 
description  were  at  that  time  pushing  into  Armenia, 
unsettling  the  Aramaean  populations  there  and  forc- 
ing them  southward.  Ashur-nazir-pal  conducts  expe- 
dition after  expedition  against  such  Aramaean  peoples, 
who  were  invading  Assyrian  territory,  the  Aramaean 
states  which  he  mentions  in  his  annals  extending  be- 
yond Diarbekir  to  the  northwest  in  Asia  Minor.  Two 
centuries  later,  in  Ashur-bani-paTs  reign,  the  Aramae- 
ans, moving  downward  on  the  edge  of  the  Persian 
mountains,  have  pushed  well  southward  into  Baby- 
lonia and  joined  hands  with  Elam.  At  that  time  they 
occupied  all  northern  Syria  and  the  country  east  and 
southeast  of  Palestine,  well  into  northwestern  Arabia, 
and  their  language  had  become  the  lingua  Franca  from 
the  Mediterranean  to  the  Persian  mountains. 


46  Bible  and  Spade 

We  find  one  further  argument  in  support  of  the 
correctness  of  the  old  Hebrew  tradition  of  the  home- 
land of  their  Aramsean  ancestors  in  the  ethnological 
traits  of  the  modern  Armenians.  While  the  Armenian 
language  belongs  to  the  Indo-European  family  of 
languages,  the  same  is  not  true  of  the  Armenian  peo- 
ple. It  requires  no  great  observation  to  determine 
from  their  physical  characteristics  and  appearances 
that  the  Armenian  and  the  Jew  are  very  closely  re- 
lated to  one  another.  In  fact,  it  requires  considerable 
discrimination  to  distinguish  one  from  the  other.  It 
is  true  that  one  notices  in  both  peoples,  Armenian  and 
Jew,  many  dissimilar  individuals.  Among  the  Ar- 
menians with  whom  I  was  thrown  in  contact  in  Asia, 
I  noted  occasionally  persons  of  distinctly  Indo-Euro- 
pean type,  and  others  who  were  Tatar-Mongolian  in 
form  and  feature,  but  the  typical  Armenian  was 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  typical  Jew,  and 
both  presented  the  same  characteristics  which  are 
apparent  in  Assyrian  sculpture.  Indeed,  those  sculp- 
tures might  very  well  pass  for  representations  either  of 
the  Jew  or  of  the  Armenian  of  to-day,  of  which  I  have 
had  some  curious  illustrations  in  actual  experience. 
Also  I  have  been  interested  and  amused  to  observe 
that  while  Arabs  could  detect  a  Jew  or  an  Armenian 
as  not  being  an  Arab  merely  from  his  physical  appear- 
ance, they  could  not  discriminate  between  Armenian 
and  Jew  any  more  than  I.  Moreover,  not  only  are  the 
Armenians  and  Jews  alike  in  appearance,  but  the  like- 
ness between  them  in  mental  and  moral  attributes  and 
in  a  curious  race  persistence  has  been  commented  upon 


The  Ancestry  of  the  Hebrews  47 

by  most  observers.^  Armenia  has  been  overrun  and 
invaded  from  the  earliest  time  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge  by  peoples  of  all  races  and  nationalities, 
but  apparently  that  has  happened  there  which  hag 
happened  in  some  other  regions:  the  underlying  race, 
although  conquered  and  assimilated  by  its  conquerors, 
so  far  as  language  or  even  religion  and  civilization  are 
concerned,  has  retained  through  all  its  primitive  type 
and  has  indeed  absorbed  into  itself  its  conquerors. 

The  evidence  at  present  in  hand  indicates  Asia 
Minor,  including  Armenia,  or  Asia  Minor  and  the 
country  south  of  it  from  the  Taurus  mountains  to  the 
Euphrates,  as  the  homeland  of  the  northern  Semites. 
To  the  west  were  the  Amorites,  who  first  reached  civi- 
lization in  northern  Babylonia  and  Syria,  and  from 
whom  ultimately  were  descended  the  Semitic  Baby- 
lonians and  Assyrians,  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Canaan- 
ites.  The  Aramaeans,  to  whom  belonged  the  Hebrews, 
occupying  originally,  apparently,  a  region  somewhat 
farther  toward  the  east,  reached  civilization  later  than 
the  Amorites.  Pushed  out  by  invasions  from  behind, 
they  poured  down  into  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  where, 
however,  they  were  absorbed  in  the  dominant  As- 
syrian-Babylonian civilization,  while  more  to  the  west, 
in  Mesopotamia  and  Syria,  they  overwhelmed  that 
civilization,  establishing  kingdoms  and  empires  of 
their  own,  ultimately  their  language  becoming  the 
language  of  international  intercourse  over  all  hither 
Asia  north  of  the  Arab  peninsula. 


n 

COSMOGONY  AND  FOLK-LORE 

In  the  previous  lecture  we  were  concerned  with 
Hebrew  legends.  From  the  legendary  lore  contained 
in  Genesis  and  Exodus,  with  occasional  references 
and  allusions  in  later  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
illuminated  by  discoveries  in  Egypt  and  Palestine, 
Asia  Minor,  Assyria,  and  Babylonia,  we  determined 
the  ancestry  of  the  Hebrews,  and  traced  the  prenatal 
growth  of  Israel  from  its  wombland  in  the  distant 
Aramsean-Armenian  northeast,  carried  into  and  through 
Mesopotamia  to  Palestine  and  then  to  Egypt;  its  re- 
lations to  the  older  Amorite  stock  in  both  of  those 
lands;  its  friendly  reception  in  the  latter  under  the 
eighteenth  dynasty  and  the  favorable  influence  upon 
it  of  the  Egypt  of  Ikhnaton,  followed  by  the  oppression 
under  the  nineteenth  dynasty;  and  in  part  the  process 
of  birth  by  which  it  became  a  nation  of  twelve  tribes 
occupying  Canaan,  with  a  new  religion  in  its  heart. 
The  theme  of  the  present  lecture  is  the  origin  and 
development  of  the  characteristic  ideas  of  Israel,  its 
mythology,  including  cosmogony,  its  folk-lore,  and  its 
institutions.  The  legends  of  a  people  are  the  tra- 
ditions of  its  primitive  history,  told  generally  in  the 
form  of  personal  narratives;  its  mythology  is  its  inter- 
pretation of  natural  phenomena,  of  the  universe  and 

48 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  49 

its  part  in  the  same,  also  in  the  form,  as  a  rule,  of 
personal  narratives;  so  that  to  some  extent  legend 
and  myth  overlap,  and  a  given  narrative  may  combine 
both  myth  and  legend.  The  personal  narratives  of 
the  acts  of  the  gods  or  of  God,  the  intercourse  of  the 
sons  of  the  gods  with  the  daughters  of  men,  God  walk- 
ing and  talking  with  Adam  and  Eve  in  Eden,  the  temp- 
tation of  mankind  by  the  Serpent,  the  pictures  of  crea- 
tion, are  clearly  mythology;  the  narratives  of  Abra- 
ham, Jacob,  and  even  Moses  combine  or  may  combine 
both  legend  and  myth,  the  tradition  of  historical 
events,  and  the  explanation  of  the  forces  behind  those 
events,  both  in  the  form  of  personal  narrative,  man  and 
God  walking  and  talking  and  acting  together.  Legend 
tells  the  ancestry,  migrations,  race  relations,  struggles, 
and  conquests  of  a  people;  mythology  reveals  the  ori- 
gin and  development  of  its  ideas;  the  understanding 
of  the  one  is  essential  to  the  understanding  of  its 
primitive  history  on  its  external  side,  of  the  other  to 
its  religious,  moral,  and  mental  development. 

It  was  in  the  year  1872  that  a  young  Englishman, 
George  Smith,  curator  in  the  Assyrian-Babylonian 
section  of  the  British  Museum,  found  a  fragment  of  a 
clay  tablet  from  ancient  Nineveh  which  contained  a 
record  strikingly  similar  to  the  story  of  the  Flood  as 
found  in  the  sixth  and  following  chapters  of  Genesis. 
The  publication  of  this  discovery  aroused  enormous 
interest,  and  the  editor  of  one  of  the  London  papers, 
The  Telegraph,  contributed  a  thousand  pounds  to  send 
Smith  out  to  Assyria  to  search  for  further  remains 
of  a  similar  character.    The  fragment  which  he  had 


50  Bible  and  Spade 

found  proved  to  be  part  of  the  eleventh  book  of  a  sort 
of  epic  liturgy,  containing  a  Sun  myth  in  twelve  cantos, 
with  historical  legends  and  traditions  interwoven. 
Fragments  of  the  other  cantos  were  ultimately  re- 
covered and  pieced  together,  so  that  in  a  general  way 
we  now  know  the  contents  of  the  whole  myth.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  discovery  of  numerous  Baby- 
lonian parallels  to  the  stories  contained  in  the  first 
volume  of  Genesis  (chaps.  1-11),  which  led  ultimately 
to  the  development  of  a  school  of  students  who  came 
to  be  called  Babylonians,  because  they  referred  about 
everything  in  the  Bible,  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  to 
some  Babylonian  source.  When  one  considers  the 
contents  of  this  first  volume  of  Genesis  in  connection 
with  what  has  now  been  found  in  old  Babylonian 
documents,  one  is  not  altogether  surprised  at  the  ex- 
treme to  which  these  Babylonians  have  driven  their 
theory. 

Attention  once  called  to  it,  even  without  going  to 
the  documents  excavated  in  Babylonia  and  Assyria, 
one  notices  to  what  extent  those  earlier  chapters  of 
Genesis  are  full  of  Babylonian  references  and  allusions. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  second  chapter,  the  one  which 
we  designated  as  the  chapter  of  the  preparation  of  the 
world.  In  this  story  the  existence  of  the  world  it- 
self is  assumed,  but  it  was  a  dry  and  barren  waste. 
The  conditions  of  creation  here  described  are  entirely 
unlike  those  which  we  find  in  the  Babylonian  myths 
or  legends.  The  mise  en  scene  is  derived  from  a  dry 
land  like  southern  Palestine,  or  even  the  still  drier 
country  southward,  where  Israel  consorted  with  the  Ke- 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  51 

nites.  Nevertheless,  we  soon  find  a  point  of  contact 
with  Babylonia.  We  meet  the  Babylonian  rivers, 
Tigris  and  Euphrates,  springing  from  the  great  abyss 
of  waters  which  lies  beneath  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and 
that  divine  garden  at  the  source  of  those  streams  is 
part  of  the  divine  abode  located,  as  in  Babylonian 
mythology,  in  the  mountains  of  the  north.  We  find 
a  further  local  reference  in  the  mention  of  the  ancient 
capital  of  Assyria,  the  city  of  Ashur,  which  lay  on  the 
river  Tigris.  This,  like  the  race  lists,  contained  in 
the  tenth  chapter  of  our  present  Genesis,  which,  as 
already  pointed  out,  connect  themselves  with  this  same 
region,  shows  traditional  connection  of  the  Hebrew 
ancestors  with  the  country  northward  and  eastward  of 
Assyria,  and  I  attempted  in  the  former  lecture  to  show 
why  that  was  the  case,  viz.,  that  the  Aramaean  fore- 
fathers of  the  Hebrews  originated  in  that  country, 
whence  they  brought  with  them  certain  myths  and 
legends.1  Possibly  this  fact  may  throw  light,  also,  on 
some  of  the  other  likenesses  between  the  Hebrew 
stories  and  the  Babylonian,  which  I  propose  to  note 
in  the  present  lecture. 

In  the  flood  story,  chapters  6-9  of  our  present  book 
of  Genesis,  modern  Bible  students  have  pointed  out 
that  two  different  documents  are  combined  to  form 
our  present  narrative.    Both  of  these  are  similar  to 

1  If  the  creation  myth  of  Gen.  2  was  a  part  of  this  older  good, 
or  even  if  it  originated  in  the  second  Hebrew  homeland  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, we  have  an  explanation  both  of  the  dry  land  mise  en  seine 
and  of  the  local  references  to  the  Tigris,  Euphrates,  and  Assyria. 
If,  as  has  been  maintained,  it  was  of  Canaanite  or  Sinaitic  origin, 
those  references  are  most  difficult  of  explanation. 


52  Bible  and  Spade 

the  flood  story  which  George  Smith  discovered  in  the 
clay  tablet  in  the  library  of  Ashur-bani-pal  in  Nine- 
veh, but  one  represents  conditions  similar  to  those  of 
Babylonia,  inundations  and  not  merely  rain  causing 
the  flood;  the  other  represents  the  conditions  of  a  hill 
or  mountainous  country,  where  water  comes  from 
heaven  only,  and  not  from  river  inundations.  Both 
agree,  however,  in  connecting  the  flood  with  the  region 
northeastward  of  Assyria,  the  same  region  to  which 
may  belong  the  dry  land  cosmogony  of  Gen.  2,  and 
where  also  was  located  Eden.  Both  show  connection 
with  the  regions  and  the  ideas  of  the  Babylonian  civ- 
ilization. Only  one,  however,  seems  to  show  a  close 
relation  to  the  actual  written  story  found  in  Baby- 
lonia.1 When  we  turn  to  the  story  of  creation,  we  find 
the  same  thing.  There  are  two  cosmogonies,  the  one 
a  lengthy  and  detailed  cosmogony,  comprising  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  and  the  first  three  verses  of  the 
second  chapter;  the  second,  quite  dissimilar,  a  briefer 
folk-story,  contained  in  chapter  two,  the  chapter  of 
the  preparation,  to  which  I  referred  in  the  previous 
lecture.  I  want  first  to  call  your  attention  to  the  rela- 
tion of  this  longer  Hebrew  cosmogony  to  the  Baby- 
lonian. 

Some  years  since,  I  was  asked  to  write,  for  Hasting's 
Encyclopaedia  of  Religion,  an  article  on  Hebrew  cosmog- 
ony.   I  supposed  that  I  knew  thoroughly  the  first 


1This  is  the  document  commonly  known  as  P,  longer,  more 
precise  and  schematic,  later  than  J,  which  is  shorter,  simpler 
folk-lore.  There  is  precisely  the  same  difference  between  the 
two  cosmogonies,  P  of  Gen.  1,  and  J  of  Gen.  2. 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  53 

chapter  of  Genesis.  The  first  Hebrew  that  I  ever 
learned  was  that  chapter,  and  to  this  day  I  can  recite 
from  memory  the  Hebrew  of  its  first  few  verses,  one 
of  the  most  familiar  parts  of  the  whole  Bible,  the  trans- 
lation of  which  into  English  is  doubtless  equally  fa- 
miliar to  you.  Now,  where  a  thing  is  so  familiar,  it 
is  frequently  the  case  that  we  accept  the  tradition 
which  has  come  down  without  investigation.  It  seems 
to  us  an  axiom,  and  so  the  translation  of  the  first  few 
verses  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  was,  I  suppose, 
axiomatic  to  my  mind.  It  had  never  occurred  to  me 
that  there  could  be  any  mistake  about  that.  When, 
however,  I  began  to  use  those  verses  for  critical  pur- 
poses, I  was  quickly  brought  face  to  face  with  the  fact 
that  the  translation  ordinarily  accepted  could  not 
possibly  stand. 

This  was  the  passage  on  which  my  studies  came  to 
grief:  "The  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters."  (In  the  American  Standard  Revision,  as  in 
the  King  James  translation,  "Spirit"  is  printed  with 
a  capital  letter;  in  the  English  Revised  Version,  with  a 
small  letter.)  This  translation  of  the  American  re- 
visers goes  back  through  Christian  tradition  to  late 
Jewish  tradition,  but  every  commentator,  American 
or  English,  who  has  expounded  the  passage,  has  also 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  is  no  other 
passage  in  the  Old  Testament  where  the  words  ren- 
dered Spirit  of  God  have  such  a  meaning.  That  gave 
me  pause;  but  the  very  next  word,  "moved  upon," 
or  as  the  English  Revised  Version  has  it,  "brooding 
over,"  aroused  still  greater  questioning.     I  began  to 


54  Bible  and  Spade 

ask  myself  what  I  had  before  me.  The'  "brooding 
over"  of  the  English  Revised  gave  expression  to  the 
common  view  in  commentaries  as  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  passage.  It  suggested  the  "spirit  of  God," 
without  a  capital,  as  brooding  over  the  world  egg, 
such  a  view  of  the  creation  of  the  world  as  you  find  in 
the  Indian  cosmogonies.  There  is,  however,  no  men- 
tion of  an  egg  here,  and  there  is  no  slightest  allusion 
to  anything  being  brought  out  of  an  egg.  Moreover, 
nowhere  else  in  the  Bible,  or  in  Hebrew  literature  or 
tradition,  can  there  be  found  any  evidence  of  the  exis- 
tence among  the  Hebrews  of  such  an  idea.  I  began 
to  ask  myself:  "What  then  does  this  passage  mean, 
which  I  supposed  I  knew  how  to  translate  and  of 
which  I  thought  I  understood  the  meaning?"  I 
looked  up  the  word  translated  "moved  upon"  or 
"brooded  over."  I  found  that  it  was  used  in  only  two 
other  places  in  the  Bible  (Deut.  32  :  11  and  Jer.  23:  9), 
and  in  the  same  form,  mood  or  tense  in  which  it  appears 
in  Gen.  1 : 2,  in  only  one  other  place  (Deut.  32 :  11). 
I  found  that  a  comparison  of  the  kindred  languages 
gave  no  certainty  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  root.  That 
it  connoted  some  form  of  motion  was  clear,  but  what  ? 
Turning  to  the  ancient  translations,  I  found  that  they 
were  equally  in  the  dark.  Their  renderings  were 
vague  or  uncertain.  In  the  passage  in  Jeremiah  in 
which  the  root  occurred,  it  seemed  to  mean  a  violent 
shaking,  as  of  a  man  in  the  ague  of  fright,  but  that 
was  not  altogether  certain.  Some  translators  supposed 
it  to  mean,  not  the  shaking  of  the  bones,  but  the 
dissolving  of  the  bones  through  becoming  absolutely 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  55 

powerless  with  fear.'  The  other  passage  in  which  the 
word  appears  is  that  beautiful  verse  in  the  song  of 
Moses,  where  the  poet  describes  an  eagle  in  her  nest 
and  her  dealing  with  her  young: 

"As  an  eagle  that  stirreth  up  her  nest, 
That  fluttereth  over  her  young, 
He  spread  abroad  his  wings,  he  took  them, 
He  bore  them  on  his  pinions." l 

Here  the  word  is  translated  in  all  three  versions,  the 
Accepted,  and  both  the  English  and  American  Revised, 
as  "  fluttereth  over."  As  I  read  that  passage,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  an  eye-witness  picture  of -the  way 
in  which  the  eagle,  or  rather  the  griffon  or  rock  vulture, 
for  I  suppose  that  is  the  bird  actually  referred  to, 
deals  with  her  young;  and  that  if  I  could  get  from  some 
naturalist  an  exact  description  of  this  I  should  probably 
get  the  correct  meaning  of  the  word  in  Genesis  also. 
For  some  years  I  pestered  distinguished  ornithologists 
in  this  country  and  abroad,  with  unsatisfactory  re- 
sults. Some  of  the  most  distinguished  informed  me 
that  what  professed  to  be  described  here  was  absolutely 
impossible  and  quite  contrary  to  nature.  Our  passage 
says  that  the  eagle  spreads  abroad  his  wings  and  takes 
and  bears  his  young  on  his  pinions.  They  assured  me 
that  no  bird  could  possibly  do  this,  and  some  of  them 
told  me  that  eagles  and,  in  fact  no  birds,  ever  teach 
their  young  to  fly,  that  birds  fly  by  nature.  Only  one 
ornithologist  said  to  me:  "The  fact  of  the  matter  is, 
we  do  not  know  anything  about  it.  If  you  had  asked 
1  Translation  of  the  American  Standard  Revision. 


56  Bible  and  Spade 

me  anything  else  about  eagles,  I  think  I  could  have 
told  you,  but  when  you  asked  me  this  question  and  I 
came  to  look  it  up,  I  found  that  we  had  absolutely  no 
evidence  or  record  on  the  subject."  In  the  meantime, 
my  own  experience  with  some  birds  told  me  that,  so 
far,  at  least,  as  the  "stirring  up"  of  the  nest  was  con- 
cerned, it  was  a  very  frequent  thing  for  robins,  pigeons, 
ravens,  and  other  small  birds  to  force  backward  young 
ones  out  of  the  nest.  Most  birds  fly  by  themselves 
by  nature,  but  now  and  then  there  is  one  that  will 
not  do  so.  You  may  have  seen  occasionally  a  young 
robin  on  the  ground  or  on  a  shrub  or  the  lower  branches 
of  a  tree,  with  the  old  birds  flying  about  and  making 
rushes  at  it.  That  young  bird  had  not  flown  with  the 
others  and  they  had  pushed  it  out  of  the  nest.  When 
a  bird  is  pushed  out  of  the  nest,  it  generally  takes  to 
the  wing,  but  some  do  not  and  those  that  you  see  on 
the  ground  are  those  which  do  not.  Then  the  old 
birds  make  every  effort  to  persuade  or  force  them  into 
flight,  chiding  them,  coaxing  them,  rushing  at  them, 
and  even  striking  them.  I  found  also  one  record  in 
commentaries  on  this  passage  which  described  two 
eagles  in  Scotland  teaching  their  young  to  fly.  They 
were  ascending  in  spirals,  and  at  intervals  one  eagle 
would  drop  underneath  the  eaglet  and  support  it  on  its 
wings  for  a  brief  space,  apparently  to  rest  it,  then  drop 
out  and  ascend  once  more;  but  I  could  not  verify  the 
record.1    Later   I  obtained  from  a  reliable  eye-wit- 

1  Apparently,  one  commentator  copied  this  with  some  varia- 
tion from  another,  no  one,  however,  giving  the  original  source. 
A  similar  incident  was  recorded  with  frills  in  a  work  of  Doctor 
Long,  but  I  was  assured  that  he  was  a  "nature  faker." 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lorc  57 

ness,  Doctor  Talcott  Williams,  of  Columbia  University, 
an  account  of  similar  action  on  the  part  of  storks,  as 
also  of  their  "stirring  up"  their  nests.  In  his  boy- 
hood, he  had  lived  near  Mosul  in  Turkey,  close  to  the 
minaret  of  a  ruined  mosque,  which  was  inhabited  by  a 
colony  of  storks.  Every  spring  they  flew  north,  but 
before  the  northward  flight  began  there  was  the  very 
interesting  process  of  schooling  backward  storks  to 
fly.  There  was  always  a  certain  number  of  young 
storks  in  the  colony  which  would  not  or  could  not 
take  wing.  These  the  older  birds  had  to  drive  out  of 
the  nest  and  teach  to  fly  before  the  colony  could  start 
on  its  annual  migration.  The  long-legged  young 
storks,  squawking  loudly  and  awkwardly  sprawling  all 
over  the  nest,  would  resist  with  all  their  might  the 
efforts  of  their  parents  to  eject  them.  When  at  last 
the  older  ones  succeeded  in  pushing  them  out,  most  of 
them  took  to  flight  with  proper  motions  of  their  wings, 
but  some  would  drop  down,  more  or  less  inert  or  with 
futile  flappings.  These  older  storks,  flying  beneath, 
would  catch  on  their  pinions.  Occasionally  one  would 
fall  between,  strike  the  ground,  and  be  killed.  In 
general,  however,  some  stork  beneath  would  succeed 
in  catching  the  falling  youngster,  and  act  as  a  support 
for  him  to  take  off  again  until  at  last  he  had  him  on 
the  wing. 

But  before  I  received  this  information  about  the 
habits  of  storks,  there  came  to  me  evidence  with  regard 
to  the  eagles  in  our  Rocky  Mountains.  In  a  mission- 
ary paper,  The  Spirit  of  Missions,  I  saw  a  reproduc- 
tion of  a  photograph  of  an  eagle's  nest  with  young 


58  Bible  and  Spade 

eagles  in  it  on  the  edge  of  a  wild  cliff.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  whoever  had  photographed  that  might  also 
have  been  able  to  observe  the  dealings  of  the  old  eagle 
with  its  young.  I  therefore  wrote  to  Bishop  Nathaniel 
Thomas,  of  Wyoming,  in  whose  jurisdiction  the  sta- 
tion lay  in  which  the  photograph  had  been  taken, 
told  him  what  I  was  doing  and  asked  him  to  put  me  in 
touch  with  the  person  who  had  taken  that  photograph. 
He  did  better.  He  multiplied  my  letter  and  sent 
it,  with  one  of  his  own,  to  stations  up  and  down  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  then  the  information  came 
pouring  in.  The  passage  in  Deuteronomy  is  written 
by  one  who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about  and  who 
had  seen  it  himself.  My  correspondents  told  me  of 
the  occasional  young  eagle,  which  they  had  seen,  who 
would  not  fly;  of  the  "stirring  up"  of  the  nest,  to  use 
the  words  in  our  English  Bible,  which  means  that  the 
parents  pushed  it  out  of  the  nest;  of  the  occasional 
young  eagle  thus  ejected  who  would  slope  down  on 
to  some  crag  in  the  cliff  and  stay  there,  refusing  to 
fly  farther;  of  the  way  the  parent  birds  would  bring 
tempting  tidbits,  birds,  rabbits,  pieces  of  meat,  hold- 
ing them  off  from  it  that  it  might  fly  out  to  get  them; 
or  how  they  would  rush  down  on  the  young  eagle  to 
strike  it  if  necessary  and  drive  it  from  its  perch  and 
make  it  fly.  Then,  after  it  had  taken  to  the  wing, 
perhaps  the  young  bird  would  lose  its  strength  or  its 
head  and  start  to  fall  to  the  ground,  but  one  or  the 
other  of  the  parent  birds  would  always  be  flying  be- 
neath to  catch  it  on  its  pinions  and  bear  it  up  until 
it  was  ready  to  take  off  again.    This  made  clear  the 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  59 

meaning  of  the  word  used  in  the  passages  in  Deuter- 
onomy and  Genesis,  nor  could  there  be  further  doubt 
about  the  meaning  of  the  form  from  the  same  root  used 
in  Jeremiah.  The  latter  means  a  violent  shaking,  as 
in  fear,  not  a  dissolving  of  the  bones;  and  in  the  other 
two  passages  the  motion  described  is  a  rushing  onset, 
a  violent  motion,  not  a  brooding  or  fluttering.  This 
translation  harmonizes  also  with  the  normal  and 
proper  meaning  of  the  word  translated  "spirit." 

Verses  1  and  2  describe  the  preparation  out  of  chaos 
of  a  world  entity  in  which  creation  may  operate.  When 
God  came  in  the  very  beginning  of  things  to  create 
the  world  he  found  chaos — the  earth  "waste  and  void" 
and  Tehom  hidden  in  the  darkness.  Now  the  word 
"Tehom,"  rendered  "deep"  in  our  Bible  translation, 
is  identical  with  the  Babylonian  Tiamat  or  Tiamtu, 
the  monster  of  chaos,  and  in  the  Hebrew,  as  in  the 
Babylonian,  it  is  a  proper  rather  than  a  common  noun. 
The  peculiar  words  tohu  and  bohu  in  our  Hebrew  text, 
rendered  "waste"  and  "void,"  are  also  identical  with 
words  used  in  the  Babylonian  cosmogony.  Against 
this  monster,  chaos  or  Tehom,  lurking  in  the  darkness 
of  that  "waste  and  void,"  which  was  in  the  place 
where  earth  was  to  be,  "rushed  the  wind  of  God." 
Such  is  literally  the  statement  contained  in  the  first 
two  verses  of  the  book  of  Genesis.  Now  compare 
with  this  in  the  Babylonian  cosmogony  the  victory 
of  Merodach  or  Marduk  over  Tiamat  and  his  creation 
out  of  her  carcass  of  heaven  and  earth.  Tiamat  or 
chaos  was  the  mother  of  all  things,  from  whom  through 
aeons  of  propagation  came  ultimately  the  gods.    She 


60  Bible  and  Spade 

was  also  the  mother  of  hideous  monsters,  serpents, 
and  dragons,  which  peopled  the  waste  and  void.  These 
were  her  special  and  characteristic  progeny,  and  be- 
tween her  and  them  and  the  gods  was  war.  But  the 
gods  could  make  no  head  against  them,  and  the  great- 
est of  the  older  gods  recoiled  in  terror  or  retired  dis- 
comfited from  the  conflict  with  Tiamat.  Then  Mar- 
duk  of  Babylon,  of  the  younger  generation  of  the  gods, 
offered  himself  as  their  champion  if  they  would  own 
him  lord  of  all.  He  made  his  face  shine  with  light- 
ning— he  filled  his  body  with  flashing  fire,  he  devised 
a  net  to  encompass  Tiamat,  and  created  the  seven  winds 
to  trouble  her.  Then  with  the  gods,  his  followers,  he 
went  forth  to  war  against  Tiamat  and  her  horde  of 
monsters.  She  screamed  wrathfully,  she  made  charms 
and  uttered  spells,  but  he  was  not  dismayed,  as  the 
older  gods  had  been,  but  met  her  in  single  combat.  He 
encompassed  her  with  his  net  to  make  her  tangible, 
and  when  she  opened  to  the  utmost  her  huge  devour- 
ing jaws,  he  loosed  the  winds  and  "made  the  blast 
rush  into  her,  or  ever  she  closed  her  lips.  Raging 
gusts  her  belly  filled,  and  her  sense  was  taken  away, 
and  she  opened  wide  her  mouth.  He  thrust  in  his 
lance,  rent  her  belly,  tore  open  her  inside,  pierced  the 
heart — destroyed  her  life.  Her  carcass  he  threw 
down,  upon  her  he  stood."  Then  he  framed  a  wise 
device.  "He  rent  her,  like  the  body  of  a  gazelle,  in 
twain;  the  half  of  her  he  wrought  and  made  heaven's 
dome,"  the  other  half  constituting  the  earth.  "He 
drew  bolts,  he  stationed  warders,  charging  them  not 
to  Jet  the  waters  issue  forth/'  the  ocean  beneath  and 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  61 

the  ocean  above,  for  heaven  and  earth  were  counter- 
parts, to  bring  back  the  "waste  and  void.,,  With 
Tiamat's  fall  her  followers  fled,  but  the  greatest  of 
them  he  captured  and  "shut  up  in  prison,"  and  the 
"mob  of  demons"  he  made  subject.  So  Marduk,  god 
of  Babylon,  became  god  of  gods  and  lord  of  lords. 
"He  formed  a  station  for  the  great  gods;  stars,  their 
likenesses,  he  stationed  there.  He  appointed  the  year, 
dividing  it  into  seasons;  the  twelve  months — three 
stars  for  each  he  stationed."  "The  moon  he  made 
shine  forth;  made  him  overseer  of  light,  to  determine 
days."  l 

The  first  two  verses  of  Genesis  tell  of  the  same  battle 
of  God  with  chaos  (Tiamat,  Tehom),  who  is  conquered 
by  the  same  rushing  wind,  and  out  of  whom  is  formed 
heaven  and  earth.  The  darkness  of  the  waste  and  void 
is  dispelled  by  the  light  from  the  brightness  of  God's 
presence  (3).  In  the  Hebrew  cosmogony,  as  in  the 
Babylonian,  God  surveys  the  world,  dividing  ocean 
from  ocean  in  the  two  counterparts,  heaven  and  earth, 
set  one  over  against  the  other  (6-8).  So,  also,  the  stars 
he  sets  "for  signs,  and  for  seasons,"  and  makes  the 
moon  "to  rule  the  night"  (14-18).  Neither  does  God 
in  the  Hebrew  cosmogony  destroy  all  the  brood  of  the 
monsters  of  chaos,  but  some  of  them  he  lets  live, 
imprisoned  in  the  deep  (21).  As  the  Hebrew  cos- 
mogony is  in  seven  divisions,  or  days,  so  also  the  Baby- 
lonian cosmogony  is  divided  into  seven  parts,  or  books, 
each  written  on  a  separate  tablet.  We  are  not,  indeed, 
able  to  compare  the  two  cosmogonies  in  all  their  de- 
1  Cf.  for  translations  C.  J.  Ball,  Light  from  the  East. 


62  Bible  and  Spade 

tails,  because  these  Babylonian  tablets  are  fragmen- 
tary, but  this  much  is  clear:  that  the  Hebrew  cosmog- 
ony contained  in  Gen.  1 : 2-3  has  somewhere  behind 
it  a  source  practically  identical  with  this  Babylonian 
cosmogony. 

I  have  called  this  cosmogony  of  the  seven  tablets 
Babylonian.  The  fragments  which  have  come  down 
to  us  were  found  in  the  library  of  the  Assyrian  king, 
Ashur-bani-pal,  and  were  written  in  the  seventh  pre- 
Christian  century.  This  text  was  itself,  however,  a 
copy  from  an  older  writing,  manifestly  belonging  to 
the  period  when  Babylon  had  gained  the  supremacy 
over  the  Sumerian  cities  of  the  south,  and  Marduk, 
god  of  Babylon,  had  become  in  consequence  lord  of  all 
the  gods.  It  is  a  Semitic  cosmogony.  We  have  also, 
however,  fragments  of  Sumerian  cosmogonies,  in  one 
of  which  Enlil,  of  Nippur,  and  in  another  Ea,  of  Eridu, 
plays  the  role  of  creator  and  victor  over  Chaos,  here 
played  by  Marduk  of  Babylon.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  Chaos  is  threefold  in  the  cosmogony  of  the  seven 
tablets,  really  personified  in  two  others,  besides  Tia- 
mat  himself.  These  were  her  creatures  or  her  off- 
spring. Apparently  this  is  the  result  of  a  combination 
or  conflation  of  cosmogonies  from  different  sources. 
We  have  also  an  old  cosmogony  from  Ashur,  resembling 
in  certain  particulars  the  account  of  the  preparation 
of  the  earth  contained  in  Gen.  2,  and  we  have  other 
fragments  of  cosmogonies  contained  in  various  liturgies 
of  different  periods.  Perhaps  we  may  regard  the  cos- 
mogony of  the  seven  tablets,  the  enuma-eli$  tablets, 
as  they  are  called,  as  the  official  cosmogony  of  the 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  63 

priests  or  schoolmen  of  Babylon,  part  of  an  attempt  to 
formulate  and  officially  promulgate  a  religion  of  Mar- 
duk,  somewhere  about  the  time  of  Hammurapi,  a  little 
before  2000  B.  C,  the  period  when  Babylon  became  the 
capital  of  a  great  empire,  and  the  cult  centre  of  a  greater 
Semitic  civilization  extending  from  the  Persian  moun- 
tains to  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  and  from  central 
Asia  Minor  to  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Red  Sea,  com- 
bining, in  one  whole,  Sumerian  and  Akkadian,  i,  e., 
Semitic,  elements. 

The  cosmogony  of  the  Seven  Days,  contained  in 
Gen.  1,  may  be  regarded  similarly  as  the  official  cos- 
mogony of  the  Hebrew  schoolmen,  their  final  develop- 
ment of  this  same  cosmogony  in  their  post-exilic 
period.  We  can  trace  some  of  the  steps  of  this  develop- 
ment in  the  104th  Psalm  and  in  Deutero-Isaiah.  This 
Hebrew  cosmogony  in  its  final  development,  while 
unmistakably  basing  on  the  ancient  mythology,  has 
developed  out  of  it  a  monotheistic,  spiritual  concep- 
tion, which  we  regard  no  longer  as  mythology,  but  as 
theology.  The  differences  are  greater  than  the  re- 
semblances; the  latter  are  in  the  material  concept  of 
the  universe,  the  former  in  the  concept  of  God  and 
his  relation  to  that  universe. 

But  the  cosmogony  of  Gen.  1  is  not  the  only  Hebrew 
cosmogony  showing  kinship  with  the  Babylonian  cos- 
mogony of  the  seven  tablets.  We  have  various  frag- 
ments of  popular  cosmogony  appearing  in  Psalms, 
Prophets,  and  Wisdom  which  show  cruder  and  more 
material  resemblances  to  the  Babylonian.  In  Psalm 
89,  a  liturgy  from  the  temple  of  Dan  of  the  eighth 


64  Bible  and  Spade 

century  or  earlier,  Yahaweh  not  only  defeats  Rahab, 
here  the  leader  of  the  anti-divine  hosts,  as  Marduk 
defeated  Tiamtu,  but  treats  its  carcass  as  carrion,  just 
as  Marduk  insulted  the  corpse  of  Tiamtu.  In  a  Psalm 
from  the  temple  at  Bethel  (74)  we  have,  as  in  the 
Babylonian  cosmogony,  the  threefold  representation 
of  defeated  Chaos,  one  of  whose  names  is  here  Levia- 
than, and  the  same  contumelious  treatment  of  the 
defeated  foe  as  in  the  Babylonian  myth.  In  Job  27 
the  heavens  are  made  as  in  the  Babylonian  myth, 
and  the  threefold  Chaos  is  called  the  Sea,  Rahab,  and 
the  Fleeing  Serpent.  In  Isaiah  27  the  threefold  cha- 
otic foe  which  Yahaweh,  like  Marduk,  smites,  is  called 
Leviathan  the  Fleeing  Serpent,  Leviathan  the  Coiled 
Serpent,  and  the  Dragon  in  the  Sea;  while  in  Isaiah 
51  it  is  Rahab,  the  Dragon,  and  Tehom.  The  names 
differ,  but  everywhere  it  is  the  same  old  story  of  the 
battle  between  God  and  his  hosts  and  the  Dragon 
and  his  hosts,  especially  his  two  great  chiefs,  with  the 
slaughter  of  the  Dragon  and  the  contumelious  treat- 
ment of  his  carcass,  which  is  split  in  half  and  out  of 
half  the  firmament  of  heaven  made  with  its  bolts  and 
bars  and  pillars.  The  other  monsters,  which  in  Gen.  1 
are  hidden  in  the  seas,  reappear  in  the  Apocalypses,  be- 
ginning with  Daniel.  In  their  eschatologies,  or  visions 
of  the  last  days,  which  reflect  the  cosmogonies,  or 
visions  of  the  first  days,  these  monsters  are  let  loose 
from  their  pits  and  abysses  to  work  destruction  as  at 
the  beginning.  So,  in  the  book  of  Revelation,  with 
its  wonderful  mystical  picture  of  God's  purpose  with 
the  world,  we  go  back  to  the  ancient  monsters  of  prime- 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  65 

val  chaos  and  their  struggle  with  the  gods  to  obtain 
our  picture  of  Jesus'  triumph  over  Satan,  and  the  new 
creation. 

But  it  was  not  only  the  Hebrews  whose  cosmogony 
thus  coincided  with  the  Babylonian.  In  the  fragments 
of  Phoenician  cosmogonies,  which  have  been  handed 
down  through  Greek  sources,  we  find  the  same  thing, 
with  local  variations  and  developments.  Here  the 
Babylonian  Tiamtu  (Hebrew  Tehom)  is  Tauthe, 
while  Bohu  is  Baau.  Evidently  this  cosmogonic  myth 
was  common  good  of  the  west  land. 

The  history  of  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
cosmogony  of  Gen.  1  seems,  then,  to  have  been  as 
follows:  The  early  Sumerian  peoples  of  southern  Baby- 
lonia developed  in  their  different  centres  story-hymns 
of  the  creation  of  the  world,  colored  by  the  local  and 
climatic  conditions  of  their  land  and  their  religion, 
of  which  those  of  Nippur  and  Eridu  were  most  im- 
portant. Semitic  peoples,  pouring  down  from  north 
and  west,  adopted  the  Sumerian  myths  and  religion, 
including  their  cosmogonies,  adapting  them  to  their 
own  religion,  combining  Semitic  elements  with  Sume- 
rian. For  the  cosmogony  this  was  done  officially  by 
the  schoolmen  of  Babylon,  when  Babylon  was  the 
culture  centre  of  western  Asia,  and,  with  local  varia- 
tions and  adaptations,  this  cosmogony  of  Babylon 
became  the  cosmogony  of  the  west  land,  i.  e.,  of  Syria 
and  Palestine.  This  the  Hebrews,  of  kindred  stock, 
adopted,  as  they  adopted  the  language  of  the  country, 
adapting  it  to  their  religion;  and  as  that  religion  be- 
came more  and  more  spiritual,  unfolding  finally  after 


66  Bible  and  Spade 

the  Exile  into  a  complete  and  exalted  monotheism, 
this  cosmogony  was  developed  out  of  its  grossness,  its 
crudity,  and  its  low  polytheism  into  that  magnificent 
picture  with  which  the  Bible  opens,  of  one  spiritual 
God,  creating  the  world  by  his  word. 

It  is  wonderful  how  out  of  the  puerile,  gross  fancies 
of  the  primitive  times,  those  which  appear  in  the  myths 
and  legends  of  kindred  peoples,  the  Hebrew  thinkers 
developed  so  sane,  so  lofty,  so  spiritual  a  system  of 
cosmogony  and  of  theology.  This  is  the  glory  of  the 
Bible.  I  love  to  hunt  out  the  ancient  sources,  to  trace 
them  down,  to  see  what  they  are,  and  then,  as  it  were, 
to  discern  the  Spirit  of  God  moving  in  them,  for  it 
was  out  of  gross  sensuality  that  a  beautiful  spirituality 
developed;  out  of  crude  materialism  or  the  crassest 
anthropomorphism,  a  lofty  ethical  monotheism.  It  is 
as  when  one  sees  God's  power  working  in  natural  life: 
out  of  the  vile  ordure  of  some  bog  bringing  forth  a 
plant  whose  flower  is  the  most  graceful,  ethereal, 
spiritual  thing  that  you  will  find  in  all  nature. 

The  third  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  story  of  the  temp- 
tation, is  one  of  the  most  fascinating  in  its  suggestions 
and  connections  in  this  whole  volume  of  the  book  of 
Genesis.  Old  cylinders  discovered  in  Babylonia  and 
Assyria  show  us  pictures  of  the  tree  and  a  serpent 
standing  on  its  tail  by  the  side  of  the  tree.  We  have 
other  strange  pictures  of  genii  with  satchels  in  their 
hands,  standing  by  the  tree  and  holding  out  toward 
it  some  object,  apparently  for  the  artificial  fertiliza- 
tion of  the  tree. 

It  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  that  we  have,  in 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  67 

the  Babylonian  inscriptions,  the  equivalent  of  the 
Tree  of  Life  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  of  which  man 
did  not  eat.  This  is  contained  in  a  Babylonian  in- 
scription found,  oddly  enough,  in  Egypt,  in  Tel  el- 
Amarna.  It  is  the  story  of  Adapa,  and  seems  to  have 
been  used  by  the  scribes  of  the  Egyptian  foreign  office 
for  use  in  studying  the  Babylonian  script  and  language. 
Adapa  was  a  mighty  man  of  Eridu,  the  old  Sumerian 
city  of  the  extreme  south,  who  fished  for  Eridu.  One 
day  the  Southwind  capsized  him  and  made  him  sink 
to  the  fishes,  whereupon  in  his  wrath  he  broke  the 
Southwind's  wing,  and  for  seven  days  it  could  not 
blow.  So  Anu,  lord  of  heaven,  sent  word  to  Ea,  god 
of  Eridu,  to  bring  Adapa  to  his  presence.  Ea,  afraid 
of  a  rival,  warned  Adapa  not  to  eat  of  any  food  or 
drink  which  might  be  offered  him  there,  he  also  clothed 
him  in  a  mourning  garment  and  gave  him  other  treach- 
erous advice.  The  result  was  that  Adapa  refused  the 
food  of  life  and  the  water  of  life  which  Anu  would  have 
given  him  to  eat  and  drink,  and  thus  failed  of  the  im- 
mortality the  god  would  fain  have  bestowed  upon  him. 
This  story  relates,  however,  if  at  all,  only  to  that 
tree  of  life  of  which  Adam  did  not  eat,  but  of  which 
God1  was  afraid  that,  having  acquired  knowledge  to 
procreate  his  kind,  he  might  also  eat  and  acquire  im- 
mortality for  himself  and  his  descendants,  becoming 
rival  to  divinity.  The  tree  of  life  in  the  Hebrew  story 
seems  irrelevant  and  extraneous  in  its  present  form, 

1  Or  gods.  It  is  a  very  primitive  and  anthropomorphic  story, 
and  at  times  one  hardly  knows  whether  it  is  God  or  gods  of  which 
he  is  reading. 


68  Bible  and  Spade 

as  though  we  had  part  of  another  story  imbedded  in 
the  story  of  the  temptation.  In  the  Babylonian 
story  of  Adapa,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  or  of  the  serpent  and  the  temp- 
tation which  are  the  real  substance  of  the  Hebrew 
story. 

In  latter  years  Babylonian  scholars  have  succeeded, 
after  a  fashion,  in  translating  some  of  the  very  old 
records  discovered  particularly  at  Nippur  by  the 
Babylonian  expedition  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. Several  of  these  have  been  announced  as 
descriptions  of  a  Babylonian  Garden  of  Eden,  more  or 
less  parallel  to  the  Hebrew  account.  In  point  of  fact, 
they  are  liturgies1  connected  with  an  ancient  lascivious 
cult,  of  the  existence  of  which  both  in  Babylonia  and 
Canaan  we  have  been  finding  increasing  evidence  from 
the  excavations  in  those  regions.  In  these  old  litur- 
gies the  serpent  is  identified  with  the  goddess.  She 
is  the  river  which  as  a  serpent  winds  down  to  fertilize 
the  land.  The  god  is  connected  with  the  great  terraces 
and  towers  and  walls  of  the  temples.  Thence  he  looks 
down  and  sees  the  serpent  goddess  and  is  enticed,  and 
so  the  land  is  fertilized.  Such  liturgies  were  sung  in 
connection  with  the  obscene  ritual  of  the  cult  of  fructi- 
fication, which  was  regarded  as  a  birth  of  the  fruits  of 
the  ground  from  the  cohabitation  of  god  and  goddess. 
It  was  that  old  worship  of  the  wonderful  and  mys- 
terious source  of  life.    Now,  when  one  turns  to  the 

1  The  well-known  Babylonian  poem  of  "The  Descent  of  Ishtar 
into  Hades"  is  also  a  liturgy,  and  perhaps  likewise  the  crea- 
tion story  and  other  similar  writings. 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  69 

Hebrew  story  of  Eden  and  the  fall  of  man,  one  sees  at 
once  that  it  is  a  sex  story,  but  whereas  in  the  Baby- 
lonian the  sex  relation  is  almost  deified  and  is  exalted 
into  a  licentious  cult,  the  Hebrew  reacts  into  an  almost 
ascetic  relation  to  sex,  as  a  consequence  of  that  lascivi- 
ous and  obscene  cult  which  had  developed  in  connec- 
tion with  this  worship  of  the  principle  of  life.  It  is 
when  Adam  and  Eve  are  brought  into  union  with  one 
another  that  their  understanding  is  awakened  to  know 
sin,  and  misery  is  brought  into  a  hitherto  happy,  care- 
free world.  When  one  studies  the  Israelite  prophets 
and  sees  the  conditions  with  which  they  were  confronted 
in  Canaan,  how  men  and  women  inflamed  their  lust 
"under  every  green  tree,"  he  will  understand  why 
and  how  the  moral  sense  of  the  religious  leaders  re- 
volted against  the  old  mythology  in  this  regard.  With 
our  present  knowledge  we  can  perceive  the  elements  of 
connection  between  the  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  Edens, 
but  even  more  striking  than  in  the  case  of  the  creation 
story  are  the  differences  between  the  two  accounts. 

In  the  fourth  and  fifth  chapters  of  Genesis  we  have 
two  lists  of  antediluvian  heroes,  who  lived  each  for 
centuries.  Both  commence  with  Adam  and  end,  the 
one  with  Lamech,  the  father  of  Noah,  and  the  other 
with  Noah.  The  one  contains  seven,  or,  adding  Noah, 
eight  names,  the  other  ten.  The  former  gives  us 
stories  or  incidents  in  connection  with  some  of  the 
names,  the  latter,  or  longer  list,  is  a  mere  skeleton  of 
names.  The  former  is  folk-story,  the  latter  scribal 
genealogy.  Comparison  shows  that  they  are  in  origin 
the   same,   the   apparently   divergent   names,   Cain- 


70  Bible  and  Spade 

Cainan,  Methushael -Methuselah,  Irad-Jared,  etc., 
being  only  variants  of  the  same  names.  The  history 
of  Berossus,  a  Babylonian  priest  postdating  Alexander 
the  Great,  fragments  of  which  in  the  Greek  have  come 
down  to  us,  has  preserved  for  us  a  similar  list  of  ten 
primeval  kings  of  Babylon  who  ruled  for  aeons  and 
whose  names  our  present  knowledge  of  the  Babylonian 
language  enables  us  to  equate  with  those  of  the  He- 
brew lists  of  antediluvian  heroes;  the  equated  names 
appearing,  however,  in  forms  which  show  that  the  ten 
heroes  became  common  good  of  the  Hebrew  ancestors 
and  of  the  Babylonians  at  a  very  early  period.  More 
recently  there  have  been  discovered  among  the  old 
Sumerian  texts  from  Nippur  documents  similar  to 
those  from  which  the  lists  contained  in  Berossus  must 
ultimately  have  derived.1  Placing  the  three  lists  side 
by  side,  we  are  able  to  see  how  these  ten  names,  with 
certain  notes  concerning  the  deeds  of  their  bearers, 
were  translated  from  the  Sumerian  into  the  Babylonian 
Semitic  tongue,  and  from  that  again  transferred  into 
Hebrew  at  a  very  early  period,  so  early  that  the  mean- 
ing of  some  of  the  names  is  not  evident  from  classical 
Hebrew. 

So  Amelon,  a  Greek  corruption  in  Berossus's  list, 
third  name,  for  the  Babylonian  Amelu,  man,  equates 
with  the  Hebrew  Enos,  which  may  be  described  as 
archaic  Hebrew  for  man.  The  fourth  name,  Amme- 
non,  of  Berossus,  is  clearly  the  Babylonian  Ummanu, 

1  See  Geo.  A.  Barton,  Archceology  and  the  Bible,  Part  D,  chap- 
ter V.  He  was  the  first  to  discover  the  relation  of  these  Sume- 
rian lists  to  those  of  Berossus. 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  71 

artificer.  This  equates  with  Cainan  and  Cain  of  the 
two  Hebrew  lists,  which  are  the  same  name  in  variant 
forms.  Neither  Cain  nor  Cainan  are  in  classical 
Hebrew  true  words  with  a  meaning,  but  the  Aramaean 
furnishes  us  with  a  word  cainai,  smith,  identical  in 
root  and  sound,  which  is  in  meaning  the  equivalent 
of  the  Babylonian  ummanu.  The  seventh  name  of 
Berossus's  list  is  Edorachus  or  Enedorankos,  the 
Babylonian-Sumerian  En-wie-dur-an-ki,  "interpreter 
of  heaven  and  earth,"  of  whom  we  are  informed  in 
Babylonian  inscriptions  as  the  holy  priest  of  Sippara, 
the  city  of  the  Sun,  and  to  whom  was  ascribed  the  origin 
of  the  guild  of  soothsayers,  the  interpreters  of  oracles 
and  signs.  To  this  corresponds  Enoch  of  the  He- 
brew, i.  e.,  the  anki  of  En-me~dur-an-kiy  the  former  part 
of  the  long  name  being  omitted  (as  in  the  Hebrew 
name  Ahaz  for  Jehoahaz),  the  holy  man,  who  "walked 
with  God  and  he  was  not;  for  God  took  him"  (Gen. 
5:24).  This  man  of  Sippara,  city  of  the  Sun,  is 
followed  by  Amempsinos,  evidently  the  Babylonian 
Amel-Sin,  man  of  Sin,  the  Moon-god.  This  equates 
with  the  Hebrew  Methusha-el  or  Methuselah,  which 
means  male  or  man  of  God.  The  last  name  of  Berossus's 
list,  Xisuthros,  is  the  Ut-napishtim  of  the  cuneiform 
inscriptions,  the  hero  of  the  Flood.  But  Ut-napishtim 
may  apparently  be  read  also  Nuh-napishtim,  which 
is  the  Hebrew  Noah,  by  the  simple  omission  of  the  last 
element  of  the  name.  In  similar  fashion  the  Hebrew 
Seth  stands  for  the  Babylonian  Shithu-Elu,  by  omis- 
sion of  the  divine  suffix  elu  or  Uu.1 

1  For  the  other  names  in  these  lists,  see  Barton. ' 


72  Bible  and  Spade 

In  these  lists  of  antediluvian  heroes,  some  of  whom 
were  also  gods,  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  alike,  we  have 
civilization  stories,  attempts  to  account  for  the  growth 
and  development  of  civilization,  the  commencement 
of  city  building,  the  division  of  men  into  settler  and 
nomad,  the  origin  of  musicians,  metal  workers,  sooth- 
sayers, and  interpreters  of  the  oracles  of  God.  In 
both  is  found  a  similar  free  treatment  of  names.  Su- 
merian  and  Semitic  Babylonian  appear  side  by  side  in 
the  one,  and  in  the  other  classical  Hebrew  and  archaic 
or  Aramaean  forms.  Evidently  in  origin  these  creation 
legends  were  very  early,  going  back  in  Babylonia  to 
the  primitive  Sumerian  civilization;  and  also  they  early 
became  common  good  of  the  Semitic  world,  and  so  a 
heritage  of  the  Hebrews  from  their  forefathers,  puri- 
fied, monotheized,  and  spiritualized,  like  all  similar 
material.  Ultimately  they  were  incorporated  in  Gene- 
sis in  two  forms,  the  less  complete  but  more  discursive 
and  more  human  folk-lore  form  in  the  fourth  chapter 
of  Genesis,  and  the  schematically  more  complete  list, 
of  names  and  years  only,  contained  in  the  fifth  chapter. 

Of  the  intercourse  of  gods  and  men,  the  resulting 
wickedness  of  man,  and  of  the  Flood  I  have  already 
spoken,  and  because  the  Hebrew  and  Babylonian 
parallels  for  the  latter  are  so  well  known,  I  do  not 
propose  to  dwell  upon  this  further.  Only  here,  as 
bearing  on  the  question  of  the  Arabian  origin  of  the 
ancestors  of  the  northern  Semites,  I  would  note  that 
Arabic  legend  and  folk-lore  have  no  allusion  to  the 
Flood  myth,  which  plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  myth- 
ology of  the  northern  Semites,  connecting  itself,  as  al- 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  73 

ready  pointed  out,  with  the  region  of  Armenia.  And 
the  same  is  true  in  general  of  Babylonian  and  Hebrew 
mythology  and  folk-lore — they  show  connections  with 
the  north,  but  never  with  Arabia. 

I  am  not  trying  to  give  an  exhaustive  account  of 
the  sources  of  all  the  myths  and  stories  contained  in 
the  eleven  chapters  of  the  first  volume  of  Genesis,  but 
am  more  particularly  noting  those  things  which  I 
have  myself  found  or  observed,  or  which  have  become 
especially  my  own  through  study  and  observation. 
Let  me  skip,  therefore,  to  the  last  chapter  of  this  first 
volume  of  Genesis,  to  try  to  point  out  there  an  instance 
of  a  connection  of  another  sort  of  early  Hebrew  story 
with  Babylonia.  In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Genesis 
we  are  told  that  the  whole  earth  was  "of  one  language 
and  of  one  speech,"  or,  to  use  the  literal  picturesqueness 
of  the  Hebrew,  "of  one  lip  and  one  word;  and  it  came 
to  pass,  as  they  journeyed  east,  that  they  found  a  plain 
in  the  land  of  Shinar  (i.  e.,  Sumeria  or  Babylonia); 
and  they  dwelt  there."  Here  we  have  the  same  con- 
nection, noted  in  the  first  lecture,  of  the  ancestors  of 
the  Hebrews  with  the  Aramaean  folk  of  the  country 
of  that  farther  east.  In  the  Assyrian  inscriptions,  as 
already  pointed  out,  we  find  the  Aramaeans  for  long 
centuries  drifting  downward  from  Armenia  into  As- 
syria and  Babylonia.  We  find  them  settled  on  the 
western  slopes  of  the  Persian  mountains,  the  Assyrians 
and  Babylonians  occupying  the  plain  country.  From 
these  mountain  settlements  they  continually  made 
inroads  on  the  inhabited  and  cultivated  territory,  the 
great  Sumerian  plain,  and  the  Assyrians  and  Baby- 


74  Bible  and  Spade 

lonians  were  constantly  engaged  in  conducting  punitive 
expeditions  against  them.  The  Aramaean  tradition 
represented  in  the  Hebrew  story  connects  their  an- 
cestors with  those  lands.  This  story  also  reveals  to 
him  who  reads  a  close  connection  with  Babylonia, 
and  yet,  as  I  think  you  will  see  in  a  moment,  it  is  not 
derived  from  Babylonia,  it  is  not  a  story  of  the  Baby- 
lonians, but  of  outsiders  who  knew  that  country  and 
were  profoundly  affected  by  its  monuments. 

We  are  told  that  the  people  on  the  Babylonian  plain 
learned  to  make  bricks  and  that  they  had  bitumen  for 
mortar.  Those  are  striking  peculiarities  of  the  Baby- 
Ionian  region.  Then,  further,  these  people  say  to  one 
another:  "Come,  let  us  build  a  city  and  a  tower,  its  top 
unto  heaven.  Let  us  make  a  nation;  that  we  may  not 
be  scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  the  whole  earth." 
This  is  a  picture  of  the  development,  as  the  ruder 
Aramaeans  saw  it,  of  that  Babylonian  civilization  where 
men,  ceasing  to  be  nomads,  built  cities  and  towers. 
As  for  the  towers,  those  were  one  of  the  most  charac- 
teristic features  of  the  great  Babylonian  cities  and 
temples.  We  have  discovered  a  number  of  them, 
square  pyramids,  built  step-like,  the  highest  seven 
stories;  in  the  more  common  form,  three  stories  in 
height.  It  was  not  every  temple  which  had  one  of 
these  towers,  ziggurats,  or  pinnacles,  as  they  were  called, 
but  there  were  enough  of  them  to  be  in  striking  evi- 
dence all  over  the  Babylonian  plain,  and  their  remains 
still  stand,  visible  oftentimes  almost  a  day's  journey 
away,  great  masses  of  unburned  brick,  as  a  rule.  The 
Hebrew  story  goes  on  to  tell  how  the  Lord  came  down 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  75 

to  see  the  cities  and  towers  which  the  children  of  men 
were  building,  and,  after  that  old  fashion  which  we 
find  in  almost  all  the  old  mythologies,  God  was  jealous 
of  men  and  more  or  less  fearful  of  what  they  might  do 
if  they  learned  the  secrets  of  divine  power,  and  he 
says:  "Behold,  they  are  one  people  and  they  all  have 
one  language,  and  this  is  what  they  begin  to  do:  and 
now  nothing  will  be  withholden  from  them  which  they 
purpose  to  do.  Come,  let  us  go  down  and  confound 
their  language  that  they  may  not  understand  one  an- 
other's speech."  So  they  were  unable  to  continue  their 
building  and  were  scattered  abroad.  And  then  the 
story  goes  on  to  tell  that  the  name  of  that  place  in 
which  the  Lord  confounded  their  language  and  scat- 
tered them  was  "called  Babel,  because  the  Lord  did 
there  confound  the  language  of  all  the  earth,  and  from 
thence  did  the  Lord  scatter  them  abroad  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth.' '  Here  we  have  one  of  those  char- 
acteristic folk  etymologies,  a  play  upon  words,  by  which 
Babel  is  made  in  punning  fashion  to  mean  confusion. 
In  Babylonian,  Babel,  our  Babylon,  really  meant  Gate 
of  God. 

Babylon  from  about  2200  B.  C.  was  the  emporium 
and  centre  of  religious  life,  of  culture  and  of  civiliza- 
tion for  the  whole  of  western  Asia.  It  was  a  place 
where  many  races  and  many  languages  met,  as  con- 
fusing in  its  day  as  New  York,  Chicago,  or  Constanti- 
nople are  in  ours,  a  place  where  you  could  hear  every 
known  tongue.  You  would  find  there  colonies  of  all 
sorts  of  people,  just  as  you  do  in  New  York  and 
Chicago  to-day,  so  that  in  one  place  you  would  hear 


76  Bible  and  Spade 

only  Elamite  spoken,  in  another  perhaps  the  old 
Sumerian  tongue,  which  the  priests  were  using  in  the 
temples  as  the  church  language,  precisely  as  the  Ro- 
man Church  uses  Latin  to-day.  I  suppose  you  could 
have  found  quarters  where  Aramaic  was  spoken,  quar- 
ters where  Hittite  was  spoken,  and  much  more.  There 
was  a  confusion  of  tongues,  and  any  one  who  has 
lived  in  New  York  or  Chicago  realizes  the  difficulties 
and  general  confusion  growing  out  of  this,  and  the 
resulting  inefficiency  and  incompetency  in  certain  di- 
rections, with  their  manifold  perplexities. 

But  what  was  this  tower  ?  The  inclination  has  been 
to  suppose  that  it  was  that  great  mass  of  unburned 
brick  in  Babylon  itself  which  is  known  to-day  as  Babel; 
but  that  was  never  a  ziggurat.  Now,  about  eight  miles 
south  of  Babylon,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Euphrates — 
Babylon  itself  was  astride  the  river — was  the  city  of 
Borsippa,  a  sister  city,  ultimately  almost  a  suburb,  of 
Babylon.  They  lie  so  close  together  that  the  ordinary 
observer  to-day  almost  inevitably  confuses  them;  and 
they  were  most  closely  associated  in  the  ancient  time. 
In  Babylon  stood  the  great  temple  of  Marduk,  known 
as  Esagila.  In  Borsippa  stood  the  great  temple  of 
Nebo,  known  as  Ezida.  Apparently  Borsippa  was  the 
older,  and  at  the  New  Year's  feast  the  procession  went 
first  to  Borsippa,  whence  it  returned,  bringing  the  gods 
of  Borsippa  to  pay  homage  to  Marduk  in  his  temple  in 
Babylon,  precisely  as  in  Naples  at  the  feast  of  Saint 
Januarius  all  the  saints  of  all  the  other  churches  go 
in  solemn  procession,  the  monks  bearing  life-size  silver 
images  of  their  saints,  fifty  or  more  in  number,  to  the 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  77 

Church  of  Santa  Chiara.  There  these  saints  in  the 
form  of  their  silver  statues  make  obeisance  before  the 
image  of  Santa  Chiara  at  her  altar,  and  are  then  car- 
ried out  into  the  courtyard  to  spend  the  night  as  her 
guests.  Only  Saint  Januarius,  who  comes  in  last, 
takes  his  position  by  Santa  Chiara  on  her  altar;  and 
then  takes  place  that  marvellous  ceremonial  of  the 
liquefaction  of  the  blood  of  Saint  Januarius.  The  fol- 
lowing day  the  great  procession  returns,  with  Saint 
Januarius  and  Santa  Chiara  together  at  the  rear,  to  the 
Cathedral,  Saint  Januarius's  church,  where  the  festival 
of  the  liquefaction  continues  for  a  week.  This  is  be- 
cause the  worship  of  Santa  Chiara  is  the  older  of  the 
two. 

Now,  the  most  striking  ruin  in  all  Babylonia  at  the 
present  day  is  the  ziggurat,  or  stage  tower  of  this 
temple  of  Nebo  at  Borsippa.  In  the  form  in  which  it 
has  come  down  to  us  this  is  a  construction  of  the  great 
Nebuchadrezzar.  Unlike  the  ordinary  ziggurat  with 
which  we  are  familiar,  every  stage  of  this  was  faced 
with  kiln-burned  bricks  laid  in  bitumen,  the  core  of 
the  structure  consisting  of  sun-dried  bricks.  How  so 
solid  a  mass  was  destroyed,  we  do  not  know.  It  looks 
to-day  as  though  it  had  been  blasted  by  a  stroke  from 
the  lightning  of  God.  Whatever  the  catastrophe  was 
which  destroyed  it,  the  bricks  which  faced  this  tower, 
which  were  glazed,  each  stage  having  a  different  color, 
were  run  into  one  whole  at  that  catastrophe,  the  glaze 
fusing  the  bricks  together,  so  that  they  constitute 
to-day  one  great  mass,  split  and  riven  above,  as  though 
by  a  thunder-bolt,  but  so  solid  that  only  blasting  can 


78  Bible  and  Spade 

disintegrate  it.  We  have  Nebuchadrezzar's  own  ac- 
count of  how  he  happened  to  repair  and  rebuild  this 
ziggurat,  and  from  that  account  we  learn  that  long 
before  his  day  it  was  the  most  conspicuous  monument 
of  all  that  region,  and  also  that,  enormous  as  it  was 
when  he  found  it,  it  was  a  work  only  partly  completed, 
which  had  been  begun  and  never  finished.  Here  is 
part  of  that  account,  contained  in  the  clay  cylinders 
which  he  placed  as  foundation  documents  in  the 
corners  of  this  ziggurat  when  he  rebuilt  it.  First  he 
tells  how  Marduk  guided  him  to  repair  this  monument 
of  his  cousin  god,  Nebo,  how,  "At  that  time  the  house 
of  the  seven  divisions  of  heaven  and  earth,"  which,  I 
suppose,  refers  to  the  seven  stages  of  the  tower  of  the 
temple,  "the  ziggurat  of  Borsippa,  which  a  former  king 
had  built  and  carried  up  to  the  height  of  forty-two 
yards,  but  the  summit  of  which  he  had  not  erected, 
was  long  since  fallen  into  decay."  The  conduits,  which 
should  have  carried  off  the  water,  "had  become  use- 
less; rain-storms  and  tempests  had  penetrated  its  un- 
baked brickwork;  the  bricks  which  cased  it  were  bulged 
out;  the  unbaked  bricks,"  which  constituted  the  core, 
"were  converted  into  rubbish  heaps."  This  was  the 
condition  of  this  monument,  a  very  old  one,  even  the 
name  of  the  builder  of  which  had  been  forgotten,  which 
Marduk  moved  Nebuchadrezzar's  heart  to  rebuild. 
He  built  it  of  the  same  size,  he  did  not  change  its  place 
or  its  foundation.  He  built  it  "as  in  former  times," 
that  is,  he  carried  out  the  original  plan  to  make  it  an 
enormous  ziggurat,  overtopping  everything  else,  and 
he  raised  it  to  the  height  which  had  been  planned.    It 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  79 

was  that  mysterious  and  wonderful  ruin  of  a  hoar 
antiquity,  which  long  antedated  Nebuchadrezzar,  look- 
ing as  though  man  had  sought  to  climb  up  to  heaven 
by  its  steps,  and  which  had  never  been  completed, 
which  gave  rise  to  the  idea  of  the  interference  of  God. 
There  is  the  physical  original  of  the  story  of  the  tower 
of  Babel.  There  is  also  the  testimony  to  the  ancient 
belief  that  Babylon  was  the  centre  from  which  the 
civilization  of  western  Asia  took  its  origin. 

And  now  let  me  take  up  one  thing  in  the  second 
volume  of  this  book,  in  the  story  of  Abram,  or,  as  we 
more  commonly  call  him,  Abraham.1  That  is  a  name 
of  the  same  form  which  we  find  in  the  Babylonian  rec- 
ords of  the  period  about  2200  B.  C.  in  Babylonia. 
We  find  there,  also,  the  names  Jacob  and  Joseph, 
sometimes  with  the  divine  name  added,  Jacob-el  and 
Joseph-el,  and  sometimes  without.  About  2500  B.  C, 
or  a  little  after  that,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  great 
pouring  in  of  peoples  from  the  west,  the  land  which 
the  Babylonians  always  called  Amurru,  or  west  land, 
whom  we  meet  in  the  Bible  as  Amorites.  They  were 
a  Semitic  people,  differing  from  the  Aramaeans,  to 
whom  the  Hebrews  belonged,  as  the  French  differ 
from  the  Italians  or  from  the  Spanish,  all  going  back 
in  their  language  to  the  same  Latin  stock,  but  speak- 
ing tongues  differently  modified  out  of  the  Latin. 
The  Amorites  and  the  Aramaeans  spoke  Semitic  tongues, 
but  variant  one  from  another.  Those  were  the  days 
before  the  Aramaeans  had  appeared  on  the  scene. 
They  were  still  in  their  ancient  homeland  to  the  north- 

1  This  name  also  occurs  in  these  two  forma  in  Babylonian. 


80  Bible  and  Spade 

ward.  I  suggested  in  my  last  lecture,  from  the  ap- 
pearance in  Egyptian  inscriptions  of  the  names  Jacob-el 
and  Joseph-el  as  inhabitants  of  Canaan,  that  the 
Egyptians  had  found  similar  Amorite  Semitic  peoples 
inhabiting  central  Palestine,  whose  traditions  later 
the  Hebrews,  occupying  the  land,  took  over  with  their 
old  shrines;  exactly  the  same  sort  of  thing  that  took 
place  when  Christianity  conquered  heathen  Europe. 
Now  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis  we  have  a 
most  perplexing  story.  It  is  different  as  a  piece  of 
writing  from  anything  about  it,  as  though  the  author 
of  Genesis  had  derived  the  record  of  this  story  from  a 
source  different  from  that  from  which  he  drew  the 
other  records  or  stories  of  this  volume.  It  tells  of 
Abram  in  Palestine,  at  Hebron,  and  of  Lot  in  the  Jor- 
dan valley,  who,  as  we  know  from  the  Egyptian  in- 
scriptions, was  the  earlier  population  of  that  land,  as  of 
the  land  later  occupied  by  the  Moabites  and  Ammon- 
ites, who  hence  came  to  be  called  the  children  of  Lot. 
It  tells  further  about  the  invasion  of  that  country  by 
a  certain  Elamite  king  named  Chedorlaomar,  which  is 
a  perfectly  good  Elamite  name,  although  we  have  not 
yet  certainly  identified  such  a  king.  It  tells  us  of 
strange  ancient  peoples  who  were  in  Canaan  at  that 
time,  of  whose  existence  we  have  learned  in  later  days 
through  excavations,  and  it  tells  us  that  what  is  here 
narrated  took  place  in  the  days  of  Amraphel,  King  of 
Shinar,  which  we  call,  from  Babylonian  records,  Sumer 
or  Sumeria.  Now  we  know  this  Amraphel.  He  was 
the  great  king  of  Babylon,  who  a  little  before  2000 
B.  C.  made  Babylon  the  capital  of  all  Babylonia  or 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  81 

Sumeria,  and  established  a  mighty  empire.  He  was 
the  founder  of  the  greatness  of  Babylonia,  and  in  rela- 
tion to  the  Babylonian  empire  he  played  very  much  the 
same  part  which  Alfred  the  Great  did  in  making  Eng- 
land a  nation.  In  the  capital  of  Elam  there  was  dis- 
covered, nineteen  years  ago,  a  vast  stele  or  monument, 
erected  originally  by  this  same  Amraphel,  or,  to  give 
him  his  Babylonian  name,  Hammurapi,  containing  the 
code  of  laws  which  he  ordained  and  published  for  his 
country.  As  Moses  is  represented  in  the  Bible  as 
receiving  the  law  for  Israel  from  God,  so  on  this  stele 
Hammurapi  is  represented  as  receiving  these  laws  from 
the  Sun-god,  who  in  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  and  we 
might  say  in  general,  was  the  god  of  law. 

These  laws  of  Hammurapi  are  frequently  represented 
as  the  original  of  the  Hebrew  laws,  or  at  least  of  that 
earliest  code  of  Hebrew  laws  which  we  find  in  Exodus, 
chapters  20-23.  Let  me  briefly  analyze  Hammurapi's 
code.  It  is  headed  by  five  laws  dealing  with  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice.  In  these  we  find  the  same 
general  principle  which  we  find  in  the  Hebrew  laws, 
that  if  any  man  bring  an  accusation  against  another 
and  it  turn  out  to  be  false,  he  is  to  suffer  the  punish- 
ment which  he  attempted  to  inflict  upon  the  other. 
There  are  two  things  to  which  we  have  no  parallel  in 
the  Hebrew  laws;  one  is  the  test  or  ordeal,  in  this  case 
by  water.1  The  accused  may  prove  his  innocence  by 
casting  himself  into  the  God  River.  If  he  sink,  it  is 
proof  that  he  is  guilty,  if  he  escape,  he  is  innocent,  and 

1In  Hebrew  the  ordeal  appears  only  in  the  case  of  a  wife 
suspected  by  her  husband  of  adultery  (Num.  5). 


82  Bible  and  Spade 

the  code  ends  with  the  provision  that  if  a  judge  through 
bribery,  or  wilful  malice — his  own  fault,  the  code  says — 
give  a  decision  contrary  to  the  facts,  he  shall,  on  the 
reversal  of  that  decision,  pay  twelve  times  the  fine 
levied  by  him,  be  removed  from  the  bench,  and  be  in- 
eligible for  further  judicial  service. 

Then  follows  a  series  of  laws,  6-25,  dealing  with 
theft,  direct  or  constructive.  They  are  more  humane 
than  the  corresponding  Hebrew  laws,  substituting  fine 
or  lesser  amputation  where  the  Hebrew  prescribes  the 
death  penalty.  Only  in  the  case  of  offenses  against 
the  higher  classes,  especially  against  temple  or  palace 
officers,  the  punishment  is  death.  These  laws  reveal 
a  condition  of  society  very  different  from  that  which 
the  Hebrew  laws  show,  both  in  the  development  of 
classes  of  society  and  also  in  the  picture  they  give  of 
trade,  of  the  stability  of  institutions  and  the  like, 
and  especially  in  the  development  of  slavery,  about 
one-half  of  the  laws  covering  theft  dealing  with  slavery. 
As  illustrative  of  stability  of  institutions  and  of  ex- 
tended commercial  relations,  the  person  accused  is 
allowed  six  months  in  which  to  get  witnesses.  The 
evidence  of  extended  commercial  relations  contained 
in  these  laws  is  confirmed  also  by  the  records  contained 
in  Babylonian  tablets  of  the  same  period,  where,  for 
instance,  an  owner  who  rents  a  cart  provides  that  that 
cart  is  not  to  be  used  for  driving  from  Babylonia  to 
the  Mediterranean  Sea.  In  case  of  highway  robbery 
the  laws  of  Hammurapi  lay  the  burden  of  restitution 
on  the  community  in  which  the  robbery  occurred,  with 
a  further  penalty  in  case  of  loss  of  life  in  connection 
with  the  robbery. 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  83 

The  next  series  of  laws,  26-49,  shows  us  certain  pe- 
culiar social  conditions  growing  out  of  military  exigen- 
cies. It  deals  with  the  people  to  whom  royal  grants 
of  land,  houses,  and  the  like  were  made,  in  return  for, 
or  in  connection  with,  which  they  are  bound  to  render 
a  feudal  service,  which  service  could  not  be  deputed. 
We  have  nothing  in  the  slightest  degree  resembling 
this  in  the  Hebrew  laws,  except  only  that  in  later  He- 
brew legislation  there  is  provision  made  for  the  inalien- 
ability of  lands,  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  an  owner, 
not  a  tenant,  proprietorship,  but  that  is  a  late  develop- 
ment. In  Babylon,  about  2000  B.  C,  we  find  this 
inalienability  prescribed  for  a  different  purpose,  in 
connection  with  these  feudal  grants,  the  inalienability 
including,  with  the  tenant,  his  cattle  and  sheep,  as  well 
as  the  land,  so  that,  for  instance,  if  a  feudal  tenant 
were  captured  by  the  enemy  and  had  no  money  to 
pay  for  the  ransom,  the  temple  of  his  town  must  pay 
it  for  him,  or,  failing  that,  the  central  or  royal  power. 

Then  follows  a  series  of  laws  concerning  tillage  of  the 
ground,  42-65,  reflecting  the  peculiar  conditions  of  a 
country  dependent  upon  the  irrigation  of  the  land, 
rather  than  the  watering  of  the  land  from  heaven. 
Also  the  developed  condition  of  civilization  in  Baby- 
lonia is  shown  by  the  provisions  for  loans  to  farmers 
on  the  security  of  their  fields,  for  a  tenant  receiving 
his  share  of  the  improvements  in  the  case  of  redemp- 
tion of  waste  lands,  and  the  like.  The  closing  portion 
of  this  series  of  laws  was  erased  by  the  Elamite  con- 
queror who  set  the  stele  up  in  Susa,  as  also  the  com- 
mencement of  the  following  series  of  laws  dealing  with 


84  Bible  and  Spade 

mercantile  transactions.  The  Elamite  king  had  in- 
tended to  inscribe  his  name  on  the  spot  thus  made 
bare,  but  failed  to  do  so,  and  we  do  not  know,  there- 
fore, who  it  was  that  plundered  Babylon  and  carried 
off  this  stele. 

Of  the  laws  dealing  with  mercantile  transactions  only 
eight  are  left,  100-107,  and  here  again  we  find  a  develop- 
ment far  in  advance  of  that  represented  anywhere  in 
Hebrew  law.  Provision  is  made  for  goods  intrusted 
to  merchants  to  buy  and  sell  in  other  towns  or  countries, 
a  commission  business,  and  it  is  further  provided  that 
receipts  shall  be  given  and  taken;  and  if  a  person  did 
not  give  or  receive  such  a  document  written  on  a  clay 
tablet,  his  claim  for  the  return  of  goods  or  moneys 
alleged  to  be  intrusted  to  another  should  be  invalid. 

The  next  section,  108-111,  deals  with  tavern-keepers, 
and  to  this  we  shall  return  in  a  moment.  Then  fol- 
lows a  series  of  laws,  112-126,  vastly  in  advance  of 
the  civilization  represented  in  Palestine  at  any  period 
covered  by  the  codes  of  laws  contained  in  the  Penta- 
teuch. These  are  the  laws  dealing  with  banks  and 
safe-deposit  or  storage  companies. 

The  longest  series  of  laws,  127-195,  deals  with  family 
relations,  both  marital  and  filial.  In  one  regard, 
certainly,  the  position  of  woman  is  higher  than  in  the 
Hebrew  codes.  She  has  property  rights,  separate 
from  her  husband,  and  if  she  can  show  maltreatment 
or  desertion  by  him,  she  may  secure  a  divorce.  Highly 
advanced  is  the  law  that  provides  that  if  a  man's 
wife  becomes  diseased  he  may  not  put  her  away,  and 
although  he  may  take  in  that  case  another  wife,  he 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  85 

must  provide  for  the  sick  woman  in  his  own  house  and 
support  her  as  long  as  she  lives.  Accused  of  infidelity, 
a  woman  may  claim  the  ordeal  of  water  mentioned 
above.  A  false  charge  of  infidelity  against  a  woman  is 
punished  most  severely.  If  in  these  regards  a  woman 
stands  higher  and  is  better  protected  than  in  Hebrew 
law,  on  the  other  hand,  we  find  in  this  section  laws 
about  women  dedicated  to  the  service  of  the  gods,  a 
practice  which,  although  actually  existing  in  Israel 
until  the  Reformation  under  King  Josiah  in  Judah  in 
624  B.  C,  was  never  legalized  or  recognized,  so  far  as 
we  can  judge  by  the  Hebrew  codes  of  laws  which  have 
come  down  to  us. 

Then  follows  the  section  dealing  with  crimes  of 
violence,  196-214,  a  development  of  the  lex  talionis, 
the  fundamental  principle  of  which  is  common  not  only 
to  Babylonia  and  to  the  Hebrews,  but  practically  to 
all  the  world,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth,  hand  for 
hand,  burning  for  burning,  wound  for  wound,  stroke 
for  stroke.  But  here  we  notice  a  greater  development 
of  classes  among  the  Babylonians,  and  more  excep- 
tions to  the  rule  consequent  upon  difference  of  station. 
The  laws  governing  the  practice  of  medicine,  or  per- 
haps rather  surgery,  including  not  only  the  surgeon, 
but  also  the  veterinary  and  barber,  who,  among  other 
things,  branded  slaves,  follow  as  a  sort  of  development 
of  the  lex  talionis.  So,  in  the  laws  of  surgery,  215- 
223,  there  is  a  fixed  price  for  certain  operations  and 
treatments,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  if  a  physician  kill 
a  free  man,  or  put  out  his  eye  in  treating  him,  his 
hands  are  to  be  cut  off;  and  somewhat  similarly,  the 


86  Bible  and  Spade 

veterinary  is  to  be  punished  in  case  of  injury  to  the 
animals  he  treats,  224-225.  So  likewise  the  barber, 
226-227,  shall  have  his  hand  amputated  in  case  of 
false  branding,  which  is  a  species  of  manstealing.  The 
laws  covering  building  operations  also,  228-233,  are 
particularly  concerned  with  the  punishment  to  fall 
upon  the  builder  in  case  the  house  he  builds  be  badly 
built,  the  punishment  being  greater  or  less,  according 
to  the  damage  done,  from  the  death  of  the  builder 
down  to  compensation  or  repair.  The  ship-builder  is 
treated  in  the  same  way,  234-235.  Here  we  have  also 
a  regulation  of  prices,  and  indeed  in  all  sections  pro- 
visions are  made  determining  the  prices  of  services 
rendered,  from  doctors,  builders,  and  contractors 
down  to  the  commonest  laborers. 

After  the  laws  governing  ship-builders  came  those 
dealing  with  the  management  of  boats,  the  responsi- 
bility of  sailors  in  case  of  wreck,  etc.,  236-240,  and  then, 
241-246,  laws  covering  the  hire  and  treatment  of  oxen 
and  asses.  These  laws,  while  very  different  in  other 
regards,  and  much  more  advanced  than  the  Hebrew 
laws,  give  evidence,  like  the  latter,  of  the  existence  in 
those  days  of  dangerous  wild  beasts,  especially  lions. 
The  provisions  covering  the  case  of  the  goring  ox  are 
practically  the  same  as  in  ancient  Hebrew  law,  Ex. 
21 :  28-32.  In  these  laws,  again,  we  have  the  provision 
of  community  responsibility,  that  in  certain  cases  the 
community  must  make  good  theft  or  fraud  or  failure 
to  fulfil  a  contract  by  one  of  its  members. 

Then  comes  the  series  of  laws,  247-277,  regulating  the 
wages  of  laborers  and  labor  instruments  of  various  de- 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  87 

scriptions,  including  the  water-wheels  and  the  systems 
for  irrigating  the  land.  Tillage  of  the  ground  and  herd- 
ing of  cattle  play  in  the  Babylonia  of  that  day  a  promi- 
nent part,  and  next  to  them  comes  navigation.  Farm- 
hands, herdsmen,  and  sailors  are  the  principal  laborers; 
all  other  workmen  are  included  under  one  law,  274, 
which  fixes  the  wages  of  the  potter,  tailor,  carpenter, 
rope-maker,  and  mason. 

The  concluding  section  of  laws,  278-282,  deals  with 
slave-trade.  Then  follows  an  epilogue  in  which  Ham- 
murapi  endeavors  to  give  sanction  to  his  laws  by  all 
the  powers  of  religion  and  superstition.  Every  possi- 
ble curse  is  to  be  visited  on  any  one  whosoever  then,  or 
in  time  to  come,  should  change  or  interfere  with  these 
laws  or  their  execution,  precisely  the  same  thing  which 
we  find  at  the  end  of  the  codes  in  Leviticus  and  Deu- 
teronomy. 

There  are  two  laws  or  series  of  laws  in  this  code  which 
threw  a  very  interesting  light  on  passages  in  the  Bible, 
laws  which  have,  however,  no  correspondents  or  an- 
alogies in  the  Hebrew  codes  whatever.  Law  146  reads : 
"If  a  man  take  a  wife  and  she  give  a  maid  servant  to 
her  husband  and  that  maid  servant  bear  children  and 
afterward  would  take  rank  with  her  mistress  because 
she  has  borne  children,  her  mistress  may  not  sell  her 
for  money,  but  she  may  reduce  her  to  bondage  and 
count  her  among  the  maid  servants."  Now,  this  was 
precisely  what  happened  in  the  case  of  Sarah  and  Hagar. 
Sarah,  being  childless,  gave  her  maid,  Hagar,  to  Abra- 
ham, we  are  told  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Genesis, 
and  when  Hagar  saw  that  she  had  conceived,  her  mis- 


88  Bible  and  Spade 

tress  was  despised  in  her  eyes.  Sarah  makes  com- 
plaint to  Abraham  of  the  wrong  done  her  and  calls 
the  Lord  as  judge  between  him  and  her,  whereupon 
Abraham  surrenders  Hagar  to  her  to  do  as  she  pleases. 
Hagar  is  again  a  bondwoman  in  the  hand  of  her  mis- 
tress. This  does  not  mean  that  in  this  particular  case 
Babyonian  legislation  directly  affected  Hebrew  prac- 
tice, but  of  that  later. 

The  other  Bible  passage  which  receives  elucidation 
from  the  Hammurapi  code  is  the  story  of  the  Hebrew 
spies  who  lodged  with  Rahab  at  Jericho.  In  Joshua 
2 : 1,  we  read:  "And  they  went  and  came  into  the  har- 
lot's house  and  lodged  there. "  There  is  in  this  ac- 
count, as  ordinarily  interpreted,  something  peculiarly 
shocking  to  us.  That  the  spies  on  a  sacred  and  war- 
like mission,  having  the  burden  of  that  great  responsi- 
bility on  their  shoulders,  should  take  the  opportunity 
to  go  to  the  house  of  a  harlot  in  Jericho  seems  to  re- 
flect on  the  moral  character  of  Hebrew  leadership  in 
that  day.  Turning  to  the  code  of  Hammurapi,  we  find 
in  the  laws,  108-111,  dealing  with  wine  sellers  or  tavern 
keepers,  that  the  gender  of  the  wine  seller  or  tavern- 
keeper  is  always  feminine.  The  trade  was  in  the  hands 
of  women.  It  is  also  evident  from  these  laws  that  the 
places  where  wine  was  sold  were  lodging-houses  for 
the  traveller.  The  wine  seller  was  the  inn  or  tavern- 
keeper,  and  one  of  these  words  really  best  conveys  the 
sense  of  the  Babylonian  wine  seller.  It  is  further  evi- 
dent from  the  terms  of  this  legislation  that  outlaws 
and  bad  characters  were  apt  to  collect  in  these  taverns, 
that  they  were  places  of  doubtful  repute;  so  a  priestess 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  89 

was  forbidden  to  enter  a  tavern  or  to  become  the  mis- 
tress of  a  tavern.  This  throws  light  on  the  character 
of  the  place  to  which  the  spies  went  in  Jericho  and  on 
the  position  of  Rahab.  They  went  to  the  tavern  be- 
cause it  was  the  only  place  to  which  one  could  go, 
unless  one  became,  through  courtesy,  the  guest  of  a 
resident  of  the  town.  Rahab  was  the  keeper  of  the 
tavern,  and  perhaps  the  better  rendering  of  the  passage 
in  Joshua  2 : 1  would  be :  "  And  they  went  and  came  to 
an  inn  and  lodged  there";  and  Rahab  should  be  called 
Rahab  the  tavern-keeper,  rather  than  Rahab  the  har- 
lot. It  may  be  added  that  we  have  from  Jewish 
sources  corroborative  evidence  of  the  disreputable 
character  of  the  hotel  business  in  Palestine  in  later 
ages.  Jewish  ritual  provisions  forbade  the  marriage 
of  a  priest  with  a  woman  connected  with  the  business 
of  keeping  a  tavern. 

Later  discoveries  have  shown  us  that  this  code  of 
Hammurapi,  early  as  it  is,  dating  from  before  2000 
B.  C,  had  still  earlier  codes  behind  it.  Hammurapi 
accomplished  in  this  code  precisely  what  King  Alfred 
of  England  did  in  his  famous  "Dooms."  Alfred  found 
in  England  a  variety  of  dooms  or  judgments  sanctioned 
by  the  kings  of  various  localities.  These  he  gathered 
together  "and  commanded  many  of  those  to  be  written 
which  our  forefathers  held,  those  which  to  me  seemed 
good;  and  many  of  those  which  seemed  to  me  not  good 
I  rejected  them,  by  the  Council  of  my  Witan,  and  in 
otherwise  commanded  them  to  be  holden;  for  I  durst 
not  venture  to  set  down  in  writing  much  of  my  own,  for 
it  was  unknown  to  me  what  of  it  would  please  those 


90  Bible  and  Spade 

who  came  after  us.  But  those  things  which  I  met  with, 
either  of  the  days  of  Ine  my  kinsman,  or  of  Offa  king 
of  the  Mercians,  or  of  iEthelbryght,  who  first  among  the 
English  race  received  baptism,  those  which  seemed  to 
me  the  rightest,  those  I  have  gathered  together,  and 
rejected  the  others." 

It  may  be  added  that  King  Alfred  began  his  dooms 
with  a  somewhat  free  revision  of  the  ten  command- 
ments of  Moses,  followed  by  an  equally  free  revision  of 
the  early  legislation  contained  in  the  following  chapters 
of  Exodus,  20-23.  Hammurapi,  precisely  in  the  same 
way,  gathered  together  in  a  code  ancient  laws  of  differ- 
ent dates  and  sources,  adapted  them  to  present  condi- 
tions, with  necessary  modifications,  and  then  organized 
the  whole  systematically  into  a  code.  This  code  was 
inscribed  on  stelse1  which  were  set  up  in  various  places 
in  the  land.  Now  this  code  dates  from  a  time  when 
Babylonian  armies  overran  Syria  and  Palestine  and  the 
kings  and  peoples  of  countries  from  the  Persian  moun- 
tains to  the  Mediterranean  Sea  rendered  allegiance  to 
a  Babylonian  suzerain.  There  was,  at  that  time,  a 
general  conformity  of  civilization  throughout  that 
entire  region,  the  myths  and  legends,  magic  and  de- 
monology,  the  religious  worship,  the  weights  and  mea- 
sures, the  divisions  of  time  and  the  like,  were  largely 
the  same  in  Babylonia  and  in  Palestine.  Later  the 
dynasty  of  Hammurapi  fell  before  the  people  of  the 
sea  country  and  the  Cassites,  the  Mitannians  estab- 
lished themselves  in  Mesopotamia  and  the  Hittites  in 

1 C/.  the  erection  by  the  Hebrews  of  laws  on  pillars  at  Shechem, 
Deut.  27. 


Cosmogony  and  Folk-Lore  91 

central  and  western  Asia  Minor,  and  for  a  time  com- 
munication between  east  and  west  was  almost  cut  off. 
Then  Egypt  overran  Syria  and  Palestine  and  included 
them  in  a  mighty  empire.  Then  began  that  period 
of  universal  disturbance  with  which  I  dealt  in  part  in 
my  first  lecture,  when  the  Hittites  pressed  down  into 
Syria  from  Asia  Minor,  the  Philistines,  Sardinians,  and 
other  foreigners  from  the  northern  coasts  and  islands 
of  the  Mediterranean  descended  on  the  coast  lands, 
and  the  Aramaeans  from  the  northeast  on  the  hinter- 
land, bringing  chaos  and  confusion  in  the  whole  west 
land.  Nevertheless,  certain  basic  ideas  and  princi- 
ples of  the  earlier  civilization  remained  unchanged. 
The  language  of  ordinary  use  was  still  Semitic  of  the 
Amorite  stock,  the  old  Babylonian  script  continued  in 
use,  with  the  Babylonian  practice  of  writing  on  clay 
tablets,  and  with  these  went  the  old  religion,  the  old 
cult,  and  the  general  principles  of  the  old  jurisprudence. 
These  were  the  conditions  that  the  Hebrews  found 
when  they  entered  Palestine.  They  found  the  relics 
of  the  old  Babylonian  civilization.  With  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  laws  which  lay  back  of  Ham- 
murapi's  code,  in  part  at  least,  they  were  naturally 
sympathetic.  Those  were  the  ancestral  fundamental 
principles  of  the  northern  Semites,  which  the  Aramaeans 
shared  with  the  Amorites  and  Babylonians.1  Those 
old  principles  of  law  had,  however,  to  be  developed  to 
conform  to  their  new  life  as  inhabitants  of  cities  and 
as  agriculturists  in  Canaan.    They  must  have  taken 

1  Note  that  an  Assyrian  code  of  laws  from  about  1500  B.  C. 
was  discovered  in  Ashur  by  the  German  excavators. 


92  Bible  and  Spade 

over  from  the  Canaanite  inhabitants  many  cf  their 
laws,  precisely  as  they  took  over  their  sacred  sites  and 
religious  practices,  but  the  laws  which  had  been  de- 
veloped in  Canaan,  while  having  a  general  relation  to 
the  laws  of  Hammurapi's  code,  could  never  have  been 
identical  with  those  laws.  The  conditions  of  life  in 
the  two  regions  were  very  different,  and  even  had  they 
been  the  same,  the  Hebrews,  with  their  own  different 
customs  and  traditions,  and  especially  with  their 
different  religious  institutions,  could  never  have  taken 
over  from  the  Canaanites  precisely  the  laws  which  they 
had  developed.  There  is  a  certain  relationship  be- 
tween the  laws  of  Hammurapi  and  the  laws  of  the 
Hebrew  codes,  especially  of  the  earlier  ones  in  Ex. 
20-23  (but  to  some  extent  also  the  codes  of  Deu- 
teronomy and  Leviticus),  but  that  connection  is  an 
indirect  one.  It  is  not  a  case  of  borrowing  from  the 
laws  of  Hammurapi,  but  a  case  of  the  possession  and 
inheritance  of  a  civilization  and  of  ideas  and  constitu- 
tions similar  in  their  fundamentals  to  the  civilization 
and  the  cult  of  Babylonia. 


m 

HISTORY  AND  PROPHECY 

I  closed  my  first  lecture  with  some  reference  to  the 
chaos,  the  Dark  Ages  which  overwhelmed  the  ancient 
civilization  in  the  thirteenth  and  following  centuries, 
very  much  as  in  the  Dark  Ages  of  the  post-Christian 
period  the  barbarian  hordes  overwhelmed  Roman  and 
Greek  civilization  and  overthrew  those  empires.  It 
is  not  until  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  that  the 
veil  really  begins  to  lift.  The  Bible  gives  us,  in  the 
books  of  Joshua  and  Judges,  the  story  of  the  struggle 
for  the  mastery  and  possession  of  Palestine  between 
Hebrews,  Canaanites,  and  Philistines,  but  we  learn 
nothing  of,  or  from,  the  outside  world.  Egyptian, 
Assyrian,  and  Babylonian  inscriptions  tell  us  from  this 
period  practically  nothing  of  Canaan  and  of  the  Israel- 
ites. There  is  a  curious  little  travel  story,  or  it  may  be 
the  report  of  an  Egyptian  official  who  visited  Canaan 
and  the  Phoenician  coast  land,  somewhere  about  the 
middle  of  the  period  of  the  Judges.  According  to  this 
story  Egypt,  at  that  time,  still  made  a  shadowy  claim 
to  the  sovereignty  of  the  land.  The  city  of  Dor,  on 
the  coast  just  south  of  Mount  Carmel,  belonged  to  one 
of  the  peoples  against  whom  we  found  Ramses  III  fight- 
ing, kindred  to  the  Philistines.  The  Philistines  are 
clearly  at  that  time  a  much  more  civilized  people  than 

93 


94  Bible  and  Spade 

the  Hebrews.  Being  better  organized  also,  they  pressed 
in  from  the  coast  land,  gradually  dominating  the  He- 
brews, who  were,  although  superior  in  numbers,  less 
well  equipped  and  organized.  The  result  of  the 
struggle,  however,  was  that  the  disunited  Hebrews 
were  welded  together  and,  finding  at  last  an  heroic 
leader,  a  natural  military  genius  and  organizer,  David, 
they  became  a  real  nation  and  established  a  great 
kingdom,  levying  tribute,  as  the  Egyptians  used  to  do, 
on  all  the  peoples  of  Palestine  and  many  of  the  kings 
and  princes  northward,  as  far  as  the  Euphrates,  being 
on  terms  of  equal  alliance  only  with  the  Phoenician 
cities  of  the  coast  land. 

When  the  veil  lifts,  about  1000  B.  C,  we  find  an 
enormous  advance  in  civilization  resulting  from  the 
great  catastrophe.  Iron  has  taken  the  place  of  copper. 
Evidently,  those  nations  which  had  poured  down  from 
the  north  and  overwhelmed  the  ancient  civilizations  of 
Italy,  Greece,  the  iEgean,  Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  Canaan, 
Syria,  Mesopotamia,  Assyria,  and  Babylonia,  had 
been  able  to  do  so  particularly  because  of  their  better 
armament.  It  was  like  Cortez  and  his  little  band  of 
Spaniards  overwhelming  the  Mexicans  with  their  guns 
and  horses.  The  introduction  of  iron,  not  merely  for 
purpose  of  ornament,  as  heretofore,  but  for  practical 
use  in  tools  and  weapons,  marks  one  of  the  great  stages 
in  the  upward  movement  of  civilization  in  the  human 
race.  But  not  only  do  we  find  the  use  of  iron  coming 
out  of  that  chaos  and  welter  of  the  nations,  but  also  an 
alphabet.  The  el-Amarna  letters  were  written  in  the 
cuneiform  script,  a  most  complicated  and  awkward 


History  and  Prophecy  95 

method  of  writing,  from  our  point  of  view,  although 
superior  to  anything  then  in  existence — to  the  hiero- 
glyphic script  of  Egypt,  to  the  script  of  the  Hittites, 
to  the  script  of  Crete — as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it, 
and  it  only,  was  adopted  by  foreign  peoples  as  a  means 
of  writing  their  own  language.  When  we  first  find 
writing  after  the  Dark  Ages  in  the  country  on  the 
eastern  Mediterranean  coast,  our  own  alphabetical 
system,  which  has  continued  to  this  day,  had  taken  the 
place  of  that  cumbersome  script  of  ideograms  and 
determinatives.  This  was  a  still  greater  step  forward 
in  civilization  than  the  use  of  iron.  We  find  the  marks 
of  this  change  in  writing  in  the  Bible.  It  is  at  this 
period  that  we  begin  to  have  written  records  in  the 
Hebrew.  They  had  now  a  means  of  communication, 
vastly  superior  to  anything  heretofore  existing,  which 
tempted  men  to  write,  as  the  former  system  had  hin- 
dered them  from  doing.  Tradition  says  that  it  was 
with  the  Phoenicians  that  this  script  originated;  cer- 
tainly the  earliest  records  come  from  that  eastern 
coast  land  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  it  is  nations 
immediately  about  that  region  which  we  find  first 
using  the  fully  developed  alphabetic  script.  How  it 
originated,  from  what  one  of  the  previous  systems  of 
writing  it  was  derived,  we  do  not  know;  perhaps  from 
a  combination  of  two  or  several,  because  it  is  from  com- 
binations of  different  civilizations  and  different  uses 
and  ideas  that  new  and  better  things  are  ordinarily 
developed. 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  parallels  between  the 
outcome  of  those  Dark  Ages  of  the  pre-Christian  world, 


96  Bible  and  Spade 

and  the  outcome  of  the  Dark  Ages  of  the  post-Christian 
world.  As  from  the  former  came  iron  and  the  alpha- 
bet, so  from  the  latter  came  gunpowder  and  the  print- 
ing-press; but  there  is  another  interesting  parallel 
between  the  two.  Out  of  the  post-Christian  Dark 
Ages  came  the  dawn  of  a  new  spiritual  and  creative 
era.  The  thirteenth  century  is  looked  back  to  now  by 
many  as  one  of  the  wonderful  centuries  of  the  world's 
history,  because  of  its  development  in  architecture,  as 
evinced  in  the  cathedrals,  and  because  of  that  adapta- 
tion of  the  old  heathen  philosophy  to  the  Christian 
Scriptures  which  produced  scholastic  theology,  and 
was  one  of  the  elements  that  prepared  the  way  for  the 
later  advance  in  religion.  So,  also,  out  of  the  Dark  Ages 
of  those  pre-Christian  centuries  came  the  religion  of 
Israel,  basing  upon  the  ancient  prophet  Moses,  just 
as  the  scholastic  learning  based  upon  Jesus;  and  as  that 
thirteenth  century  built  cathedrals,  which  embodied 
and  crystallized,  as  it  were,  the  Christian  religion,  so 
Israel  built  the  great  temple  at  Jerusalem  which  was 
destined  to  play  so  mighty  a  part  in  the  upbuilding  of 
the  religion  of  Israel. 

But  before  we  turn  to  the  light  which  archaeology 
throws  on  that  temple,  let  me  say  a  word  about  David's 
kingdom.  The  Old  Testament  describes  him  as  a 
mighty  conqueror  who  established  a  great  empire. 
Among  the  peoples  tributary  to  him  were  the  old  kin- 
dred Hebrew  nations  of  Ammon,  Moab,  and  Edom  to 
the  east  of  the  Jordan,  Amalek  and  the  other  half- 
nomadic  peoples  southward  to  the  borders  of  Egypt, 
the  Philistine  cities  of  the  coast  land,  and,  northward, 


History  and  Prophecy  97 

Aramaean,  Amorite,  and  Hittite  states  as  far  as  to 
Aleppo;  so  that  his  kingdom  is  described  as  extending 
from  the  river  of  Egypt  to  the  Euphrates.  This  was  the 
greatest  extent  of  Hebrew  rule,  so  vastly  beyond  any- 
thing that  came  after  that  it  became  an  ideal  which  fu- 
ture generations  regarded  almost  as  an  impossibility, 
only  reached  and  to  be  reached  by  special  divine  inter- 
position. David  and  his  kingdom  became  the  founda- 
tion of  what  we  now  call  the  Messianic  hope.  Of 
course,  stories  grew  about  what  David  had  been,  as  they 
always  will  about  any  great  hero,  by  exaggeration  and 
idealization.  The  result  has  been  that  modern  his- 
torians of  the  Hebrews,  with  their  tendency  to  distrust 
what  has  come  down  to  us  and  to  make  overanxious 
allowance  for  possible  incorrect  statements  and  exag- 
gerations, have  tended  to  deny  the  truth  of  the  great- 
ness of  David's  kingdom.  How  could  this  little  state 
of  Judah  become  so  mighty?  Were  there  not  other 
great  kingdoms  in  Assyria,  in  Babylonia,  in  Egypt,  in 
Syria,  or  Asia  Minor,  which  would  inevitably  have 
prevented  such  a  thing?  Now,  it  is  here  that  the 
Assyrian  and  Egyptian  records,  and  the  Hittite  also, 
for  that  matter,  come  to  our  help,  and  show  us  that 
the  coast  was  clear  for  any  relatively  petty  state, 
under  good  generaliship,  to  carve  out  for  itself  at  that 
moment  an  empire.  Everything  that  existed  had  been 
destroyed  by  the  great  catastrophe  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking.  Assyria  and  Babylonia  had  been,  for 
the  time,  overwhelmed.  They  continued  to  maintain 
their  existence,  and  ultimately  came  out  of  the  catas- 
trophe in  better  shape  than  Egypt,  but  such  inscrip- 


98  Bible  and  Spade 

tions  as  we  have  from  this  period  show  us  that  they 
were  so  busy  struggling  to  hold  their  own  against 
invading  hordes  from  the  north  that  they  could  not 
possibly  intervene  in  regions  so  far  away  as  Syria  and 
Palestine.  And  indeed  that  remained  true  still  for  a 
couple  of  centuries.  Assyrian  records  do  indeed  boast 
of  great  victories,  of  defeating  Aramaean  hordes  in  the 
north,  but  one  observes  that  the  Assyrians  are  contin- 
ually giving  ground,  not  gaining  ground,  so  that  at  one 
period  they  were  even  forced  to  remove  their  capital 
back  down  the  Tigris  to  the  ancient  site  of  Ashur. 
The  Hittite  empire  also  had  gone  to  pieces.  Smaller 
Hittite  kingdoms  had  sprung  up  here  and  there,  but 
none  of  any  importance.  There  was  no  Amorite  king- 
dom of  any  strength  in  the  west.  The  Aramaeans  who 
were  settling  themselves  in  Syria  had  not  established 
any  great  state.  Damascus  was  later  to  come  to  the 
front  as  more  than  the  rival  of  Israel,  but  that  time 
had  not  yet  arrived.  In  the  south,  Egypt  was  unable 
to  maintain  its  own.  The  Nubians  or  Ethiopians  were 
conquering  it,  creating,  however,  for  the  present,  no 
stable  kingdom.  While  we  have  found  nowhere  any 
records  which  mention  David  or  which  mention  at 
this  period  the  kingdom  of  the  Hebrews,  and,  in  fact, 
we  have  found  no  inscriptions  which  would  have  any 
occasion  to  do  so,  the  few  records  that  have  come  down 
confirm  the  Bible  story,  in  so  far  as  they  show  that  con- 
ditions were  entirely  favorable  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  that  which  we  are  told  in  the  Bible  story  was 
accomplished  by  David.1 

1  We  are  indeed  told  that  the  Pharaoh  gave  Gezer  to  Solomon 
as  the  marriage  portion  of  his  daughter,  and  in  Rehoboam'e 


History  and  Prophecy  99 

Inscriptions  have,  however,  given  us  some  interesting 
information  about  the  Hebrew  religion  at  this  period. 
The  name  of  the  God  of  Judah  in  latter  days  was  Ya- 
haweh,  but  in  the  personal  names  and  the  old  ritual 
formulae  in  the  Bible,  the  divine  name  is  not  Yahaweh, 
but  Yahu  (with  nominative  ending)  or  Yah,  as  in  Hal- 
leluiah (i.  e.  Hallelu-Yah,  praise  Yah),  that  old  ritual 
cry  of  the  Hebrews,  or  in  such  names  as  Isaiah, 
Hezekiah,  and  the  like. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  decipherment  of  the  old 
records  which  have  been  dug  up  in  Babylonia  is  to 
make  us  conscious  of  the  great  importance  of  personal 
names  in  the  study  of  the  history  and  especially  the 
religion  of  any  people.  The  names  of  the  gods  they 
worship  and  to  a  certain  extent  their  institutions  are 
reflected  in  the  names  of  kings,  priests,  and  leaders,  and 
by  the  prevalence  of  certain  names  we  are  able  to  de- 
termine the  relationship  of  peoples  and  their  religions, 
and  to  gain  some  insight  into  their  chronology.  Years 
ago  my  attention  was  called  to  the  use  of  the  divine 
name  in  Israelite  personal  names,  with  a  view  to  de- 
termining its  origin.  I  was  struck  with  the  fact  that 
the  divine  name  Yah  commences  to  become  prominent 
in  David's  time.  After  he  set  up  the  Ark  in  Jerusalem, 
the  divine  name  Yah  becomes  the  dominating  name  in 
Judah,  and  especially  in  the  royal  family.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  does  not  come  to  the  fore  among  the 
ten  tribes  until  two  hundred  years  later,  in  the  time  of 
the  great  prophet  Elijah,  whose  name  means  "Yah 

time  the  Pharaoh  raided  and  plundered  Palestine.  This  was  the 
reflection  of  past  relations,  and  a  passing  attempt  of  new  dynasts 
to  enforce  or  restore  old  claims  and  old  conditions. 


100  Bible  and  Spade 

(or  Yahu)  is  my  God."  I  was  also  led  to  suspect,  from 
what  I  found,  that  the  original  form  of  the  divine  name 
was  Yahu  or  Yah.  This  has  been  confirmed  most 
curiously  in  later  times.  Some  years  since  there  were 
discovered  in  Jeb,  or  Elephantine,  in  Egypt,  records, 
dating  from  about  400  B.  C,  of  a  Jewish  military  col- 
ony which  was  established  there  perhaps  in  the  sixth  or 
seventh  century  before  Christ,  which  had  its  own  temple 
and  which  worshipped  Yahu.  They  show  us,  that  is, 
that  the  name  by  which  these  Jews  knew  their  God  was 
Yahu,  not  Yahaweh.  There  have  been  discovered 
also  various  inscriptions  in  the  north  of  Syria  from  the 
kings  of  certain  small  states,  showing  this  same  form 
Yahu  in  composition  in  the  names  of  kings  of  Ara- 
maean cities,  suggesting  that  Yahu  was  a  God  name 
known  to  various  Aramaean  tribes.  It  is  curious  and 
perhaps  significant  that  in  the  historical  development 
the  name  Yahu  shows  itself  first  in  the  tribe  of  Judah, 
as  already  noted,  and  that  we  have  among  these  same 
Aramaean  peoples  in  northern  Syria  using  the  divine 
name  Yahu  two  whose  name  is  practically  identical 
with  Judah,  namely  Jaudi.  Indeed,  when  this  name 
was  first  found  in  the  Assyrian  inscriptions,  scholars 
supposed  that  it  was  our  Judah.  The  suggestion  is 
that  in  some  way  or  another  the  name  Judah  (Jehudah) 
and  the  old  name  Yahu  (Jehu)  of  the  Divinity  were 
connected;  that  Yahu,  or,  without  the  nominal  ending, 
Yah,  was  the  original  name  of  this  Divinity  common  to 
the  Hebrews  with  other  Aramaean  clans;  and  that  the 
Hebrews  ultimately  differentiated  this  divine  name, 
making  it  unique  and  peculiar  to  themselves  by  add- 


History  and  Prophecy  101 

ing  to  it  at  the  end,  as  a  consequence  of  which  the 
sacred  name  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  in  separate  use  is  different  from  that  which 
meets  us  in  personal  names  and  in  the  inscriptions. 

It  was  not  David,  but  his  son,  Solomon,  as  the  book 
of  Kings  tells  us,  who  erected  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 
The  name  used  for  this  temple  in  the  Hebrew  is  exactly 
the  same  word  used  in  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
records,  but  that  word,  E-gal,1  great  house,  is  not  a 
Semitic  word;  that  is,  it  does  not  belong  to  the  lan- 
guage stock  of  the  Hebrews  or  Phoenicians,  or  of  any 
of  their  kindred  peoples.  It  was  with  the  decipher- 
ment of  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  Assyria  and 
Babylonia  that  we  first  learned  its  origin  and  its 
meaning.  It  is  a  Sumerian  word,  or  rather  two  words, 
meaning  great  house.  That  this  word  compound  was 
taken  over  into  all  the  north  Semitic  languages  as  the 
name  for  a  certain  sort  of  temple  shows  the  relation 
of  that  ancient  civilization  of  southern  Babylonia  to 
the  civilization,  the  cult,  and  especially  the  religious 
practices,  of  all  hither  Asia.  I  have  already  noted  that 
the  Sumerian  language  continued  among  the  Semitic 
Babylonians  and  among  the  Assyrians,  down  almost 

1  E-gal  means  both  temple  and  palace,  suggesting  the  original 
connection  of  the  two,  which  is  confirmed  by  the  account  of  the 
construction  of  temple  and  palace  and  of  the  relation  of  king 
and  temple  as  described  in  our  book  of  Kings.  The  temple  at 
Jerusalem  was  in  fact,  until  the  Exile,  the  royal  church  or  cathe- 
dral of  the  kings  of  Judah,  and  not  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
places  of  worship.  The  beginning  of  the  attempt  to  make  it 
exclusive  is  found  in  the  reformation  under  Josiah,  and  the  adap- 
tation and  adoption  of  the  law  book  of  the  old  Israelite  shrine 
at  Shechem,  Deuteronomy. 


102  Bible  and  Spade 

to  the  time  of  Christ,  to  be  the  church  language,  the 
language  in  which  hymns  and  incantations  and  ex- 
orcisms were  written,  that  it  played  for  hither  Asia 
the  part  which  Latin  played  in  the  western  world  down 
to  and,  in  many  places,  after  the  Reformation.  Our 
excavations  of  Babylonian  temples  have  shown  us, 
furthermore,  that,  in  principle,  the  temple  at  Jerusa- 
lem was  copied  after  those  old  Semitic  temples  of 
Babylonia,  which  originated  with  the  Sumerians,  and 
which  were  developed  among  the  Semites,  who  took 
over  the  script  and  so  much  of  the  cult  and  religion 
of  the  old  Sumerians,  combining  with  these  contribu- 
tions of  their  own.  Let  me  take,  for  instance,  the 
greatest  of  all  the  temples  of  the  old  time,  the  tem- 
ple of  Enlil,  the  great  god  of  Nippur,  which  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  excavate.  This  temple  was  called 
E-Kur,  Mountain  House.  A  huge  platform  was  raised 
high  above  the  plain,  and  on  one  side  of  this  platform 
was  erected  an  artificial  mountain,  a  three-stepped 
stage  pyramid.  In  front  and  on  two  sides  of  this  were 
great  courts,  about  which  were  buildings.  The  altar 
was  in  the  inner  court  at  the  foot  of  the  ziggurat  or 
stage  pyramid.  The  top  of  this  ziggurat  was  too  much 
ruined  for  us  to  determine  absolutely  what  was  there, 
but  according  to  Herodotus's  account  of  a  similar  later 
temple  of  Marduk  in  Babylonia,  on  top  was  a  chamber 
having  no  image,  but  which  was  occupied  each  night  by 
the  priestess  who  waited  there  to  serve  the  god  should 
he  descend.1 

1  There  has  come  down  to  us  a  stele  of  a  Babylonian  king, 
Nabu-ablu-iddina,  containing  a  representation  of  sacrifice  to 


History  and  Prophecy  103 

The  Hebrew  temple  was  built  on  top  of  a  hill,  which 
was  so  terraced  by  a  great  retaining  wall  as  to  con- 
stitute a  large,  level  platform.  At  one  side  of  this, 
raised  above  the  platform,  stood  the  temple  building, 
the  sacred  place,  in  front  of  which  was  the  altar. 
Going  into  the  building,  one  would  find  that  there 
were  two  chambers,  a  larger  one  in  front,  and  behind 
that  a  smaller  chamber,  the  inner  sanctuary,  without 
window  of  any  sort.  This  inner  chamber  was  the 
earthly  abiding  place  of  the  God  of  the  Jews.  No  im- 
age of  him  was  erected  here,  but  there  was  a  wooden 
box  containing  two  stone  tablets  with  five  words  on 
each,  and  by  these  two  great  human-headed,  winged 
creatures,  the  cherubim.  From  the  description  of 
these  cherubim  which  we  find  in  the  first  chapter  of 
the  book  of  Ezekiel  it  would  appear  that  they  were, 
in  principle  certainly,  the  same  as  the  great  figures 
which  have  been  discovered  in  Assyrian  temples,  winged 
lions  and  winged  bulls,  which  represented  the  presence 
of  the  divinity.  The  book  of  Genesis  tells  us  that 
cherubim  were  placed  outside  the  Garden  of  Eden  as 
guardians  to  guard  the  dwelling-place  of  God,  that 
man,  driven  forth,  might  not  return.  In  Assyria  the 
cherubim  stood  outside  the  temple  doors,  like  the  cheru- 
bim of  the  story  of  Eden,  but  in  the  Jerusalem  temple 

Shamash,  the  Sun-god.  Below  are  the  altar  and  sacrifice,  with 
the  priest  and  worshippers  before  it.  Above  is  a  tabernacle, 
inside  of  which  is  the  figure  of  the  Sun-god.  Outside  of  this  two 
figures,  angels  or  ministers,  let  down  to  the  altar  by  cords  the 
sun  disk.  The  god  is  a  person,  unseen,  dwelling  in  an  inner  holy 
of  holies,  acting  through  the  visible  disk  of  the  sun,  whose  mo- 
tions are  controlled  by  his  ministers;  through  which  also,  as  fire, 
he  accepts  and  consumes  the  offerings  burned  on  his  altars. 


104  Bible  and  Spade 

they  were  placed  within,  in  the  shrine  itself.  That 
they  were  the  bearers  or  supporters  of  the  Presence  of 
God,  is  indicated  by  the  account  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Ezekiel.  And  here,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  we  come 
to  one  of  those  striking  differences  between  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Babylonian  or  Egyptian  or  whatsoever  heathen 
people.  While  the  Jew  retained  the  cherubim,  he 
removed  it  from  the  place  in  which  it  was  conspicuous, 
and  where  it  might  have  become  an  object  of  worship. 
He  did  not  abolish  it  until  after  the  Exile,  but  he  hid 
it  in  the  inner  shrine.  When  Jeroboam  led  the  revolt 
of  the  ten  tribes  against  the  oriental  despotism  of  Solo- 
mon, recalling  Israel  to  more  primitive  conditions,  he 
restored  in  those  temples  which  he  made  royal  chapels — 
Bethel  and  Dan — the  bull l  to  its  former  place  in  the 
open. 

The  temple  at  Jerusalem  was  a  striking  contrast  to 
the  more  primitive,  previously  existing  conditions  of 
worship  among  the  Israelites.  The  Babylonian  idea 
of  a  temple  had  long  before  this  made  itself  felt  in  the 
west,  and  from  what  we  can  gather  from  the  few  repre- 
sentations which  have  come  down  to  us,  the  Phoeni- 
cians had  temples  similar  in  form  to  that  which  Solo- 
mon erected  in  Jerusalem.  The  ordinary  form  of  wor- 
ship throughout  Canaan,  however,  was  of  a  different 
type,  a  ruder  idea  of  worship,  connecting  itself  with 
fountains,  sacred  stones,  trees,  and  the  like,  but  of  that 
more  hereafter,  when  we  discuss  the  excavations  in 
Palestine.  It  was  the  close  touch  of  Solomon  with  the 
Phoenicians,  probably,  which  led  him  to  build  the 
1  Was  it  a  winged  bull? 


History  and  Prophecy  105 

elaborate  temple  in  Jerusalem,  which  was  in  its  form 
and  idea  indirectly  derived  from  the  old  Sumerian 
Babylonian  temples.1 

And  one  thing  more.  We  find  in  David's  time,  ac- 
cording to  the  book  of  Samuel,  Cretans  and  other 
foreigners  serving  in  the  temple,  and  from  time  to 
time  in  the  later  records  we  find  mention  of  Nethinim, 
or  persons  given;  that  is,  those  enslaved  and  compelled 
to  serve  in  the  temple.  We  have,  in  fact,  in  the  book 
of  Joshua,  a  reference  to  the  enslaving  of  the  Gibeon- 
ites,  who  were  made  "hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 
water"  for  the  temple.  Ultimately,  long  after  the 
Exile,  these  Nethinim  were  finally  included  among  the 
Levites.  We  have  found  at  Nippur  some  of  the  temple 
pay  lists,  containing  the  titles  of  a  great  many  of  the 
officials  serving  in  the  temple,  the  amounts  which  they 


1  There  was  a  resemblance  also  in  many  details,  as  in  the  palm 
decorations,  in  the  great  basin,  which  represented  the  Tehom,  or 
abyss  of  waters  beneath  the  earth.  Peculiarly  Hebrew  in  the 
Jerusalem  temple,  however,  was  the  Ark,  with  its  contents  of 
the  Decalogue.  With  this  we  may  compare  the  pillars  of  the 
Law  set  up  at  that  more  ancient  Israelite  shrine  at  Shechem 
(Deut.  27).  In  both  cases,  it  will  be  observed,  a  representation 
of  the  Law  of  God  takes  the  place  of  the  figure  of  a  god.  It 
should  be  added  that  besides  the  great  temples  of  Babylonia 
with  ziggurats,  described  above,  there  were  others,  and  these 
by  far  the  more  common,  which  consisted  of  two  rooms,  with 
their  doors  so  arranged  that  a  worshipper  standing  in  the  court 
without  could  see  the  centre  of  the  back  wall  of  the  inner  chamber. 
Here,  in  the  place  occupied  in  the  Hebrew  Holy  of  Holies  by  the 
Ark,  stood  an  image  or  other  representation  of  the  god.  Be- 
hind this  wall  was  commonly  a  treasury  (the  Hebrew  debir), 
where  records  or  precious  things  were  safe  under  the  protection 
of  the  divinity.  The  altar  was  in  the  court  in  front  of  the  outer 
room.  Such  shrines  we  found  at  Nippur  in  connection  with 
the  great  temple,  and  such  shrines  the  Germans  found  at  Babylon. 


106  Bible  and  Spade 

received  in  payment,  and  the  like.  Against  the  names 
of  some  in  these  lists  it  is  marked  that  they  had  ab- 
sconded. They  were  clearly  slaves  who  had  taken  an 
opportunity  to  escape.  These  lists  are  a  curious  com- 
mentary on  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  temple 
staff  at  Jerusalem.  The  same  methods  were  pursued 
in  the  one  place  as  in  the  other.  Little  by  little  a  more 
spiritual  conception  entered  into  the  Hebrew  practice, 
until  ultimately  all  service  was  rendered  by  those 
who  were  consecrated  and  attached  to  the  temple  by  a 
bond  of  religion,  not  of  servitude,  and  all  who  served 
in  the  temple  in  any  capacity  were  counted  to  the 
tribe  of  Levi. 

Assyrian  records  throw  light  on  the  stories  of  Ahab, 
Jehu,  and  Jeroboam  II  in  a  way  to  which  I  think  suffi- 
cient attention  is  not  ordinarily  called.  It  was  some- 
where in  the  ninth  century  before  Christ  that  the 
Assyrian  power  began  to  revive,  after  the  period  of 
struggle  and  catastrophe  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  sufficiently  to  send  its  armies  into  the  west  land, 
northern  Syria.  It  was  Ashur-nasir-pal  II,  884-860 
B.  C,  who  carried  the  conquests  of  Assyria  as  far  as  to 
the  Mediterranean.  It  was  his  successor,  Shalmaneser 
III,  with  whom  Israel  first  came  in  contact.  In  854 
this  Shalmaneser  was  met  by  a  confederation  of  kings 
of  the  west  land,  among  whom  were  Ahab  of  Israel 
and  Ben-Hadad  of  Damascus.  The  latter  is  evidently 
the  most  powerful  of  the  confederates,  but  Israel  is  no 
mean  second.  The  Assyrian  records  of  this  time,  com- 
bined with  those  of  the  Bible,  explain  to  us  Ahab's 
policy.    Damascus  was  the  most  powerful  state  of 


History  and  Prophecy  107 

the  west,  which  was  trying  to  gain  the  hegemony. 
Ahab's  alliance  by  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  the 
priest-king  of  Tyre  was  for  the  purpose  of  getting  as- 
sistance against  Damascus.  Only  when  Assyria  ap- 
peared on  the  scene  did  Ahab  join  forces  with  the  other 
kings  of  the  west  land  under  Ben-Hadad's  lead  to  resist 
the  still  greater  danger.  Now,  all  such  alliances  in- 
volved the  introduction  of  the  worship  of  other  gods. 
So  we  are  told  with  regard  to  Solomon  that  he  set  up 
the  worship  of  all  sorts  of  foreign  divinities  about  his 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  because  he  married  the  daugh- 
ters of  foreign  kings.  He  made  alliances  with  them 
and  brought  in  their  worship.  Alliances,  and  most 
of  all  a  close  alliance  cemented  by  marriage,  involved 
such  introduction  of  foreign  worship.  Now,  what  was 
poor  Ahab  to  do — be  crushed  by  Damascus,  or  make 
an  alliance  with  the  king  of  Tyre  and  introduce  Baal 
worship?  Here  was  the  attitude  which  the  prophets 
of  Israel  took  tliroughout,  or  at  least  those  whose 
record  has  come  down  to  us  as  true  prophets:  "No 
foreign  worship  under  any  circumstances.  Let  us 
stand  by  ourselves.  Keep  out  of  these  alliances  and 
trust  to  the  Lord  for  help."  It  was  very  idealistic, 
and  it  seemed  to  most  of  those  old  kings  very  unpracti- 
cal.   I  wonder  how  we  should  have  felt  about  it? 

The  battle  of  Qarqar,  where  these  kings  of  the  west 
land  fought  with  Shalmaneser  in  854,  gives  us  a  fixed 
date  for  Israelite  and  Judean  history,  changing  con- 
siderably the  dates  reached  by  dead  reckoning  of  the 
regnal  years  of  successive  kings  in  the  Judean  and 
Israelite  accounts  given  in  the  Bible,  which  constitute 


108  Bible  and  Spade 

a  part  of  that  chronology  of  Archbishop  Usher,  which, 
in  the  boyhood  of  the  elder  among  us,  was  regarded  as 
a  constituent  part  of  the  Bible. 

The  next  record  in  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  shows  us 
a  changed  situation,  and  explains  to  us  the  meaning  of 
the  Hebrew  historical  records  of  that  period,  which  were 
not  thoroughly  understandable  before.  In  842  the 
king  of  Assyria  was  again  in  the  west  country.  This 
time  Jehu1  is  on  the  throne  of  Israel.  Instead  of  being 
in  alliance  with  Damascus,  he  pays  tribute  to  the  As- 
syrian king.  Now  Jehu  was  the  follower  of  the  proph- 
ets Elijah  and  Elisha  in  the  most  fanatical  way,  so 
fanatical  that  the  later  prophets,  like  Hosea,  denounce 
him.  He  undertook  to  blot  out  foreign  worship  in 
Israel  altogether  by  a  combination  of  cruelty  with 
treachery.  Under  pretense  of  a  great  feast  he  got 
together  all  the  Baal  priests  and  massacred  them. 
He  would  have  no  such  alliance  as  Ahab's  house  had 
made.  Without  Tyre  to  help  him  the  hand  of  Damas- 
cus fell  heavy  upon  him,  and  the  Bible  records  tell 
us  how  the  Syrians  prevailed  against  Israel.  Jehu 
paid  tribute  to  Assyria  to  buy  the  Assyrian  king  to 
attack  Damascus. 

The  Assyrian  records  throw  a  good  deal  of  light  on 
the  political  situation  from  this  time  forward  until  the 


1  Jehu  or  Yehu  or  Yahu.  What  is  here  written  J  is  the  letter 
elsewhere  written  /  or  Y.  Vowels  are  unessential  and,  if  short, 
interchangeable.  What  is  here  written  e  is  there  written  a, 
Jehu  is  Yahu,  the  Hebrew  sacred  divine  name.  That  was  clearly 
not  his  whole  name,  but  only  part  of  it.  That  he  should  be  thus 
called  is  evidence  of  the  effect  on  men's  imagination  of  his  Yahu 
or  Yahaweh  fanaticism. 


History  and  Prophecy  109 

time  of  Jeroboam.  The  Assyrian  campaigns  in  the 
west  weaken  both  Assyria  and  Damascus,  and  ulti- 
mately Israel  has  the  opportunity  to  recuperate  and  at 
last,  under  Jeroboam  II,  about  750  B.  C,  becomes  the 
most  important  kingdom  of  the  west,  more  important 
than  Damascus.  But  Assyria  shortly  regains  its 
strength  and  under  a  great  conqueror,  Tiglath-Pileser 
IV,  recommences  the  conquest  of  the  west.  Partly 
from  the  Bible,  partly  from  the  Assyrian  inscriptions, 
by  putting  the  two  together,  one  can  now  read  the 
whole  record,  and  understand  the  whole  policies  of  the 
period  down  to  the  destruction  of  Damascus  in  734, 
and  the  final  capture  of  Samaria  in  721,  when  Sargon 
transported  nearly  30,000  of  the  principal  men  of 
Samaria,  settling  some  of  them  on  the  river  Khabor  in 
Mesopotamia,  where  a  few  years  ago  were  discovered 
inscriptions,  the  names  on  which  seem  to  give  evidenoe 
that  at  that  period,  somewhere  in  the  following  cen- 
tury, Israelites  of  the  ten  tribes  were  dwelling  as  As- 
syrian subjects  in  that  territory. 

Every  one  is  familiar  with  the  discovery  of  the  in- 
scriptions of  Sennacherib  recording  the  invasion  of 
Palestine  in  701  B.  C.  This  record  has  been  so  often 
commented  on  in  connection  with  the  Bible  story, 
and  is  so  familiar,  that  I  will  do  no  more  than  to  call 
attention  to  one  extremely  important  matter  which  is 
brought  out  by  these  records,  which  has  not  received 
the  emphasis  it  ought  to  have  received.  Apparently 
the  Assyrian  records  of  Sennacherib's  predecessor, 
Sargon,  show  the  Assyrians  moving  back  and  forth, 
up  and  down  the  Philistine  coast,  and  once  invading 


110  Bible  and  Spade 

Palestine  itself.  References  to  these  movements  are 
contained  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  chapters  10,  20.  In 
the  historical  addition  to  the  book  of  Isaiah,  chapters 
36-39,  we  are  told  how  after  Sargon's  death  and 
the  accession  of  Sennacherib  Merodach-Baladan,  that 
turbulent  Chaldsean  who  had  made  himself  king  of 
Babylon,  sent  messengers  to  Hezekiah,  and  Hezekiah 
showed  those  messengers  his  treasures.  Evidently  this 
was  part  of  the  arrangement  for  the  great  rebellion 
against  Sennacherib,  which  took  place  almost  immedi- 
ately after  he  came  to  the  throne.  Merodach-Baladan 
was  the  heart  and  soul  of  this,  and  Hezekiah  was  the 
leader,  as  we  learn  from  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  as 
well  as  the  Bible  record,  in  the  west  land.  Isaiah  pro- 
tests with  all  his  might  against  this  alliance.  His 
attitude  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  former  prophets. 
His  loyalty  to  Yahaweh,  the  God  of  Israel,  leads  him 
to  oppose  any  such  alliance,  which  must  mean  intro- 
duction of  the  worship  of  false  gods,  as  earlier  in  his 
career  he  had  found  the  league  of  Ahaz  with  Assyria 
to  mean  the  introduction  of  Assyrian  worship.  We 
know  now  from  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  why  it  was 
that  Merodach-Baladan  was  able  to  make  himself 
master  of  Babylon  and  to  enlist  the  Babylonians  with 
their  great  wealth  in  the  revolt  against  Assyria.  Baby- 
lon was  the  Rome  of  that  period.  Whoever  became 
king  of  Assyria  must  come  and  take  the  hands  of  Mar- 
duk  in  Babylon.  This  all  other  Assyrian  kings  had 
done,  but  Sennacherib  failed  to  do  so,  and  regarded 
and  treated  Babylon  as  an  ordinary  province  of  his 
kingdom.    Both  the  political  and  the  religious  pride  of 


History  and  Propheqj  111 

the  Babylonians  was  deeply  offended  by  this  and  in 
the  Babylonian  records  Sennacherib  is  not  recognized 
as  king.  Thus,  its  pride  and  its  prestige  damaged, 
Babylon  was  ready  to  welcome  any  one  who  would  en- 
able it  to  assert  again  its  religious  supremacy.  Sen- 
nacherib first  directed  his  armies  against  Babylon, 
and  it  was  not  until  four  years  after  his  accession  that, 
victorious  there,  he  marched  against  Palestine.  He 
has  given  in  his  inscriptions  a  vivid  account  of  the  way 
he  laid  waste  that  country,  carrying  off  over  200,000 
captives,  besides  innumerable  cattle;  how  Hezekiah, 
who  was  the  head  of  the  revolt  in  that  region,  had 
dethroned  the  king  of  Ekron,  loyal  to  the  Assyrians, 
holding  him  prisoner  in  Jerusalem  and  setting  up  in 
his  stead  a  tool  of  his  own;  how  Sennacherib  shut  up 
Hezekiah  in  Jerusalem;  how  Hezekiah  made  submis- 
sion and  paid  a  large  tribute,  besides  surrendering  the 
women  of  his  harem  and  his  daughters.  We  have  a 
bas-relief  of  Sennacherib  besieging  and  capturing  the 
most  southern  of  the  fortresses  of  Judah,  on  the  edge 
of  the  Philistine  plain,  the  ancient  Lachish.  Then  we 
learn  how  the  king  of  Egypt,  who  had  been  coquetting 
with  the  allies,  moved  against  Sennacherib,  and  how 
the  latter,  fearing  treachery  from  the  rear,  sent  a 
force  to  Jerusalem  to  demand  the  absolute  surrender 
of  that  city,  and  of  Hezekiah  himself,  that  he  might 
not  have  a  hostile  fortress  behind  him. 

It  is  a  very  dramatic  story  as  told  in  the  book  of 
Kings  and  in  the  prose  addition  to  the  book  of  Isaiah : 
the  Rabshakeh's  insolent  demand  of  immediate  sur- 
render, his  insulting  attitude  toward  Hezekiah;  Heze- 


112  Bible  and  Spade 

kiah's  supplication  before  the  Lord  in  the  temple  as  he 
spreads  out  Sennacherib's  letter  before  him,  and  then 
the  appearance  of  Isaiah,  who  had  so  strongly  de- 
nounced Ahaz's  alliance  with  the  Assyrians  and  Heze- 
kiah's  alliance  with  Merodach-Baladan  and  the  Egyp- 
tians. Now  Isaiah  bids  Hezekiah  without  fear  to  re- 
ject Sennacherib's  terms  and  to  defend  the  city  against 
the  mighty  Assyrians,  trusting  in  the  power  of  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel.  Sennacherib's  army  was  de- 
stroyed, apparently  by  the  plague,  and  Sennacherib 
obliged  to  abandon  Palestine,  leaving  Jerusalem  un- 
taken.  This  practical  defeat  of  the  mighty  Assyrian 
by  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  made  the  most  profound 
impression,  both  in  the  religious  and  political  life  of 
Judah.  As  we  shall  see  in  another  lecture,  the  peculiar 
position  of  Jerusalem  and  the  temple  of  Jerusalem 
made  that  city,  or  rather  perhaps  the  temple  of  God 
in  that  city,  an  almost  impregnable  fortress.  The  exhi- 
bition in  this  particular  crisis  of  that  impregnability 
helped  enormously  to  develop  the  idea  that  the  Lord 
God  of  Zion  was  invincible,  a  belief  which  played  a 
great  part  in  the  development  of  the  Messianic  hope. 
But  the  disaster  which  befell  Sennacherib's  army, 
and  his  consequent  retreat,  had  another  effect,  this 
time  in  Babylonia.  Sennacherib,  after  driving  out 
Merodach-Baladan  from  Babylonia  in  702,  had  set  up 
in  his  place  a  puppet  king,  Bel-ibni.  Encouraged  by 
Sennacherib's  defeat  in  the  west,  Babylon  now  rose 
against  Bel-ibni  and  welcomed  back  Merodach-Bala- 
dan, in  700  B.  C.  Again  Sennacherib  drove  out 
Merodach-Baladan,  setting  up  in  his  stead  this  time  as 


History  and  Prophecy  113 

king  of  Babylon  his  own  son,  Ashur-Nadin-Shum,  who 
succeeded  in  maintaining  himself  for  five  years.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  Merodach-Baladan's  Chaldeans, 
who  had  taken  refuge  in  Elam,  invaded  Babylonia  in 
conjunction  with  the  Elamites,  captured  Babylon, 
took  prisoner  Sennacherib's  son  and  set  up  another 
king  in  his  place.  Sennacherib's  first  attempt  to  re- 
gain the  country  ended  in  a  defeat.  It  was  not  until 
689  that  he  finally  succeeded  in  reconquering  Babylon. 
Angered  and  outraged  by  the  persistent  rebellions  of 
that  city,  he  determined  to  destroy  it  for  good  and  all. 
Rogers,  in  his  History  of  Assyria,  vol.  II,  gives  this  ac- 
count of  what  he  did,  which  fairly  estimates  the  char- 
acter of  his  act: 

Thereupon  ensued  one  of  the  wildest  scenes  of  human  folly 
in  all  history.  The  city  was  treated  exactly  as  the  Assyrian 
kings  had  been  accustomed  to  treat  insignificant  villages  which 
had  joined  in  rebellion.  It  was  plundered,  its  inhabitants  driven 
from  their  homes  or  deported,  its  walls  broken  down.  The 
torch  was  then  applied,  and  over  the  plain  rolled  the  smoke  con- 
suming temples  and  palaces,  the  fruit  of  centuries  of  high  civili- 
zation. All  that  the  art  of  man  had  up  to  that  time  devised  of 
beauty  and  of  glory,  of  majesty  and  massiveness,  lay  in  one  great 
smoldering  ruin.  Over  this  the  waves  of  the  Euphrates  were 
diverted,  that  the  site  of  antiquity's  greatest  city  might  be  turned 
into  a  pestilential  swamp.  Marduk,  the  great  god  of  the  city, 
was  carried  away  and  set  up  in  the  city  of  Ashur,  that  no  future 
settlers  might  be  able  to  secure  the  protection  of  the  deity  who 
had  raised  the  city  to  eminence. 

It  was  undoubtedly  the  hope  and  belief  of  Sennacherib  that 
he  had  finally  settled  the  Babylonian  question,  which  had  so 
long  burdened  him  and  former  kings  of  Assyria.  There  would 
now,  in  his  opinion,  be  no  further  trouble  about  the  crowning  of 


114  Bible  and  Spade 

kings  in  Babylon  and  the  taking  of  the  hands  of  Marduk,  for 
the  city  was  a  swamp  and  Marduk  an  exile.  There  would  be  no 
more  glorification  of  that  city  at  the  expense  of  Nineveh,  which 
was  now,  by  a  process  of  elimination,  assuredly  the  chief  city  of 
western  Asia.  But  in  all  this  Sennacherib  reasoned  not  as  a  wise 
man.  He  had  indeed  blotted  out  the  city,  but  the  site  hallowed 
by  custom  and  venerated  for  centuries  remained.  He  had  slain 
or  driven  into  exile  the  citizens,  but  in  the  hearts  of  the  survivors 
there  burned  still  the  old  patriotism,  the  old  pride  of  citizenship 
in  a  world  city.  He  had  humbled  the  Babylonians  indeed,  but 
what  of  the  Chaldeans  who  had  already  produced  a  Merodach- 
Baladan  and  might  produce  another  like  him,  who  would  seek 
revenge  for  the  punishment  of  his  race  and  its  allies  in  Baby- 
lonia? From  a  purely  commercial  point  of  view  the  destruction 
had  been  great  folly.  The  plundering  of  the  great  city  before  its 
burning  had  undoubtedly  produced  immense  treasure  to  carry 
away  into  Assyria,  but  there  would  have  been  a  great  annual 
income  of  tribute,  which  was  now  cut  off;  and  a  vast  loss  by  the 
fire,  which  blotted  out  warehouses  and  extensive  stores,  as  well 
as  temples  and  palaces.  This  historic  crime  would  later  be 
avenged  in  full  measure.  In  any  estimation  of  the  character  of 
the  Assyrian  people  the  destruction  of  Babylon  must  be  set 
down  by  the  side  of  the  raids  and  the  murders  of  Ashur-nazir-pal. 
It  is  a  sad  episode  in  human  history  which  gave  over  to  savages 
in  thought  and  in  action  the  leadership  of  the  Semitic  race,  and 
took  it  away  from  the  Hebrews  and  Aramaeans  and  the  culture- 
loving  Babylonians. 

To  appreciate  what  this  act  meant  in  the  ancient 
world  is  very  difficult  for  us  moderns.  The  nearest 
parallel  that  I  can  suggest  to  the  Babylon  of  that 
period  is  Rome  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Babylon  was  the 
centre  of  the  religion  and  the  cult  of  all  western  Asia. 
For  1500  years  it  had  been  the  leader  of  the  religion,  the 
thought,  the  civilization  of  the  world.    Its  god,  through 


History  and  Prophecy  115 

the  priests  of  the  great  temple  of  E-sagila,  gave  empire 
to  whom  they  would,  precisely  as  did  the  Pope  of  Rome 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  Now  his  temple  was  destroyed 
and  the  statue  of  the  great  god  himself  carried  off  to 
Assyria,  where  he  was  made  an  underling  in  the  As- 
syrian Olympus.  Even  in  Assyria  and  in  Sennacherib's 
own  household  his  frightfulness  produced  a  revulsion. 
It  was  too  horrible,  too  awful,  too  unutterably  impious 
an  outrage.  Sennacherib  himself  was  assassinated, 
and,  to  quote  again  from  Rogers's  history: 

Esarhaddon  [Sennacherib's  son  and  successor]  was  smitten 
with  a  great  love  for  the  ancient  land  with  all  its  honored  cus- 
toms. His  whole  life  shows  plainly  how  deeply  he  was  influenced 
by  the  glory  of  Babylon's  past,  and  how  eager  he  was  to  see  un- 
done the  ruin  which  his  father  had  wrought.  As  soon  as  the  news 
of  his  father's  death  reached  his  ears  he  caused  himself  to  be  pro- 
claimed as  shakkanak  of  Babylon.  In  this  he  was  going  back  to 
the  goodly  example  of  his  grandfather  Sargon.  Sennacherib 
had  ceased  altogether  to  wear  a  Babylonian  title.  Babylonia 
was  to  him,  not  a  separated  land  united  with  his  own,  but  a 
subject  territory  inhabited  by  slaves  whom  he  despised.  Esar- 
haddon did  not  even  take  the  name  of  king,  which  in  Babylonian 
eyes  would  have  been  unlawful  without  taking  the  hands  of  Mar- 
duk,  now  exiled  to  Assyria. 

In  the  very  first  year  of  his  reign  (680)  Esarhaddon  gave 
clear  indication  of  his  reversal  of  his  father's  policy.  Babylon 
had  been  destroyed;  he  would  rebuild  it.  No  Assyrian  king  be- 
fore him  had  ever  set  himself  so  great  a  task.  He  did  not  live 
to  see  it  brought  to  the  final  and  glorious  consummation  which 
he  had  planned,  but  he  did  see  and  rejoice  in  a  large  part  of  the 
work.  With  much  religious  solemnity,  with  the  anointing  of 
oil  and  the  pouring  out  of  wine,  was  the  foundation  laying  begun. 
From  the  swamps  which  Sennacherib  had  wantonly  made  slowly 
began  to  rise  the  renewed  temple  of  E-sagila,  the  temple  of  the 


116  Bible  and  Spade 

great  gods,  while  around  it  and  the  newly  growing  city  the 
king  erected  from  the  foundations  upward  the  great  walls  of 
Imgur-Bel  and  Nimitti-Bel.  All  these,  as  the  king  boasts,  were 
enlarged  and  beautified  beyond  that  which  they  had  been  in  their 
former  glory.  Slowly  through  his  reign,  along  with  the  wars 
which  must  now  be  told,  went  on  these  works  of  peace  and  utility, 
to  find  their  entire  completion  in  the  reign  of  Esarhaddon's 
like-minded  son. 

This  awful  catastrophe  could  not  fail  to  make  its 
impression  on  the  thought  of  Israel,  an  impression  that 
strangely  enough  has  been  generally  overlooked.  It 
is  the  destruction  of  Babylon  which  is  described  in  the 
two  chapters  of  Isaiah,  13  and  14,  which  open  the  vol- 
ume of  his  prophecies  on  the  nations.  Those  two  chap- 
ters are  now  headed:  "Oracle  of  Babylon,  which  Isaiah, 
son  of  Amos  saw."  They  are  in  point  of  fact  an  oracle 
of  the  Day  of  Yahaweh,  of  which  the  destruction  of 
Babylon  was  the  culminating  event,  the  real  outcome 
of  the  Day  of  Yahaweh  being  the  deliverance  of  the 
captives  of  Israel  and  the  punishment  of  the  Assyrian 
great  power.  It  is,  in  other  words,  what  we  commonly 
define  as  a  Messianic  prophecy.  Isaiah,  as  is  evident 
from  other  passages  in  his  writings,  deeply  impressed 
by  the  deportation  of  Israel  and  the  capture  of  Samaria, 
which  took  place  in  his  early  ministry,  in  721  B.  C, 
looked  to  a  restoration  of  those  deported  Israelites, 
and  in  his  picture  of  the  Day  of  Yahaweh  he  sees 
Jacob  and  Israel  brought  back  from  their  captivity  in 
Assyria  and  Media  to  their  own  country.  The  inso- 
lent destruction  and  devastation  of  the  world  in  Sen- 
nacherib's wars,  culminating  in  the  ruin  and  desecra- 


History  and  Prophecy  117 

tion  of  Babylonia,  with  the  removal  of  Marduk  him- 
self to  Nineveh,  was  the  judgment  of  Yahaweh  upon 
the  world  by  the  hand  of  the  Assyrian,  which  of  course 
was  bound  to  result  in  good  to  the  chosen  people,  bring- 
ing back  from  the  lands  of  the  Khabur  and  Media  the 
deported  captives  of  Jacob,  and  ending  finally  in  the 
destruction  of  the  hated  Assyrians  themselves  in  the 
holy  mountain  by  a  catastrophe  vastly  greater  than 
that  which  befell  them  there  in  701  B.  C,  and  which 
itself  so  profoundly  impressed  the  imagination  of  the 
prophet.1 

There  is  another  passage  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  and 
it  is  also  in  the  second  volume  of  that  book,  the  volume 
of  the  prophecies  against  the  nations,  chapters  13-27, 
which  is  curiously  illustrated  by  Babylonian  documents. 
This  occurs  in  Isaiah's  denunciation  of  Ephraim,  fol- 


1Our  present  book  of  Isaiah  consists  of  two  main  sections, 
chapters  1-39  and  40-66.  The  latter  is  an  anonymous  work  of 
the  post-exilic  period,  of  the  very  highest  religious  value,  which 
has  been  bound  up  with  the  book  of  Isaiah.  The  book  of  Isaiah 
really  consists  of  chapters  1-39,  the  last  four  chapters,  however, 
being  merely  an  historical  supplement  copied  from  the  records, 
almost  entirely  from  our  book  of  Kings.  The  prophecies  of 
Isaiah  are  contained  in  the  first  thirty-five  chapters  of  our  present 
book.  To  these  was  added  for  convenience  of  reference  a  his- 
torical supplement,  copied  from  the  records,  and  with  the  vol- 
ume so  formed  was  bound  up,  in  the  case  of  the  copy  preserved 
in  our  Bible,  another  great  book  of  prophecies,  now  commonly 
called  Deutero-Isaiah.  The  book  of  Isaiah's  prophecies,  chap- 
ters 1-35,  is  in  three  parts,  or  volumes,  carefully  edited,  each 
piously  concluded  by  the  editors  with  a  hymn  or  a  psalm  section. 
Volume  I,  chapters  1-11,  contains  notices  about  Isaiah,  together 
with  prophecies  from  him,  from  734  to  701,  closing  with  a  hymn, 
chapter  12.  Volume  III  consists  of  five  woes,  very  fully  elabo- 
rated, four  of  them  dealing  with  or  basing  on  the  struggle  with 
the  Assyrians  under  Sennacherib  in  701  (chaps.  28-34),  and  also 


118  Bible  and  Spade 

lowing  and  connected  with  a  prophecy  against  Damas- 
cus (chap.  17),  from  the  period  of  the  alliance  between 
those  two  countries  at  the  very  beginning  of  Isaiah's 
ministry,  734  or  thereabouts.  Apparently  Ephraim 
had  borrowed  the  Adonis  or  Tammuz  cult  from  Da- 
mascus. It  is  the  practice  of  this  cult  to  which  Isaiah 
refers  (w.  10,  11): 

"For  thou  hast  forgotten  the  God  of  thy  salvation, 
And  the  Rock  of  thy  refuge  thou  has  not  remembered; 
Therefore  thou  plantest  Adonis  gardens, 
And  the  cutting  of  an  alien  God  thou  sowest; 
In  the  day  of  thy  planting  thou  forcest  it, 
And  on  the  morrow  thou  makest  grow  thy  seed. 
Withered  the  harvest 
In  the  day  of  sickness  and  cureless  pain." 

Adonis  or  Lord  was  the  name  given  throughout 
Syria  to  the  old  Sumerian  Babylonian  god  Tammuz. 

ends  with  a  hymn  (chap.  35).  The  second  volume  contains  the 
"Burdens  of  the  Nations,"  chapters  13-23,  ending  with  an  apoca- 
lypse, 24-27,  interspersed  with  psalms,  based  on  the  overthrow  of 
the  Persian  empire  by  Alexander  the  Great.  While  Isaiah  proph- 
esied from  739  to  689  B.  C,  or  a  little  beyond,  his  prophecies 
did  not  receive  their  final  shape,  therefore,  until  after  more  than 
350  years,  and  many  of  them  were  much  edited  and  expanded  in 
the  intervening  period.  Our  prophecy,  the  first  in  the  "Burdens 
of  the  Nations,"  chapters  13, 14,  shows  something  of  this  process. 
Isaiah's  original  prophecy  on  the  fall  of  Babylon  in  689  B.  C.  is 
contained  in  chapter  13,  and  14  : 1, 2, 22-27.  In  this  was  inserted 
a  Taunt  Song  on  the  fall  of  Nineveh  (606  B.  C),  14 :  4b-21,  with 
an  introduction,  verses  3,  4a,  applying  it  and,  with  it,  the  whole 
prophecy  to  the  period  after  the  Exile;  thus  making  the  original 
prophecy  on  the  day  of  Yahaweh,  based  on  the  destruction  of 
Babylon  by  Sennacherib  in  689  B.  C,  an  oracle  on  the  capture 
of  Babylon  by  Cyrus  or  Darius.  This  is  a  good  illustration  of 
the  general  method  of  the  treatment  of  the  prophecies  in  general, 
a  living  growth  from  their  original  delivery  to  their  final  canoniza- 
tion. 


History  and  Prophecy  119 

Tammuz  was  "the  true  son  of  the  great  deep."  Origi- 
nally, he  was  the  son  of  Ea,  the  god  of  Eridu,  and  was 
at  the  root  of  the  great  earth  stalk  which  grew  in  that 
city,  the  central  place  of  the  earth.  He  was  the  grain 
buried  beneath  the  ground  at  the  time  of  the  annual 
inundation  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  for  the  basis 
of  the  old  Sumerian  cults  was  the  fertilization  of  the 
ground  through  the  flooding  of  those  rivers,  which 
were  the  mother  goddess.  We  have  almost  innumer- 
able fragments  of  liturgies  from  the  very  popular  ritual 
of  Tammuz,  laments  beginning: 

"Alas !  my  hero  Darau ! 
Alas,  child,  true  lord  1" 

His  mother,  the  goddess,  is  represented  as  beginning 
the  wailing: 

"His  mother  wails,  she  begins  the  wailing  for  him. 
Wailing  and  sighing,  she  begins  the  wailing  for  him." 

Very  commonly  we  have  in  such  laments  an  expres- 
sion like  this:  "He  is  gone,  he  is  gathered  to  the  bosom 
of  the  earth."  But  the  lamentation  for  his  death  is  a 
prelude  to  the  prayer  for  his  return,  and  that  prepares 
the  way  for  the  exultation  over  his  reappearance  as 
the  ripe  grain.  The  prayers  for  this  return  were  among 
the  most  familiar  of  the  old  Babylonian  penitentials, 
called,  to  use  their  term,  "How  longs."  Here  is  an 
example:  "How  long  will  the  springing  up  of  verdure 
be  withheld  ?    How  long  will  vegetation  be  withheld  ? ' ' 

A  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  Tammuz  feast  was  the 


120  Bible  and  Spade 

planting  of  the  gardens.  To  the  present  day  the  peo- 
ple of  Babylonia  plant  their  gardens  of  vegetables  in 
the  mud  left  behind  as  the  waters  of  the  inundation 
recede.  With  such  soil,  and  water  and  the  torrid  sun, 
these  grow  with  amazing  rapidity,  bear  their  fruit  and 
begin  to  perish  as  the  mud,  after  a  little,  is  baked  dry 
by  the  burning  sun.  In  the  Semitic  period  Tammuz 
came  to  be  associated  with  Shamash,  the  Sun-god,  as 
his  child,  and  it  was  perhaps  through  his  solar  relation 
that  his  cult  spread  westward,  connecting  with  or  ap- 
propriating the  myths  and  cult  of  the  midsummer  god 
as  Adonis,  Lord.  This  cult  won  great  popularity  not 
only  in  Syria  and  Phoenicia,  but  even  in  Greece;  and 
as  the  cult  went  westward  its  ritual  continued  in  its 
essentials  and  in  some  of  its  details  the  same  as  that 
of  the  original  Sumerian  Tammuz  of  southern  Baby- 
lonia. First,  the  wailing  for  the  death  of  the  god,  who 
is  the  fertilization  principle,  his  burial  and  his  descent 
to  the  underworld,  the  search  for  him  by  a  forlorn, 
loveless,  lifeless  world,1  and  then  his  joyful  resurrection 
as  the  grain  and  the  crops  and  all  life,  restored  after 
its  burial  in  the  womb  of  the  earth.  Even  the  plant- 
ing of  the  gardens,  which  were  a  reality  in  Babylonia, 
was  continued  in  the  west  under  climatic  conditions 
which  made  them  unreal.  In  Babylonia  the  gardens 
of  vegetables  grew  almost  of  themselves  in  the  ooze  of 
the  receding  floods.  In  the  west  they  were  artificial, 
practically  useless  growths  of  the  speediest  and  most 
easily    raised   greens   in   shallow   pots,    sherds,   etc., 

lThis  is  very  vividly  pictured  in  a  well-known  Babylonian 
liturgy  commonly  called  "The  Descent  of  Ishtar  into  Hades." 


History  and  Pmphecy  121 

forced  by  watering  under  the  hot  sun.  It  is  to  this 
foreign  cult,  apparently  fostered  and  popularized  in 
Israel  by  the  alliance  with  Damascus,  that  Isaiah  refers 
in  this  prophecy.  They  have  forgotten  the  God  who 
really  gives  them  victory;  that  Rock  of  whom  the 
psalmists  sung,  the  invincible  fortress,  and  they  are 
planting  these  foolish,  artificial  gardens  of  Adonis,  an 
alien  god,  forcing  the  greens  they  plant  by  hotbed 
methods  to  bring  about  their  ripening,  only  to  wither 
instantly,  a  symbol  of  the  cureless  pain  that  should 
result  to  them  from  this  infidelity  toward  their  God. 
I  do  not  think  that  the  real  meaning  of  this  passage  of 
the  Adonis  cult  has  been  noticed  by  others,  and  indeed 
it  is  due  to  the  discovery  of  the  old  liturgies  from  Baby- 
lonia that  we  are  able  fully  to  interpret  this  passage. 
In  the  time  of  Ezekiel  (8 :  14)  we  find  this  cult  appar- 
ently one  of  the  secret  and  illicit  cults  in  Jerusalem 
itself,  and  Ezekiel,  in  speaking  of  it,  uses  the  old  Su- 
merian  name  Tammuz. 

Next  let  me  call  your  attention  to  a  passage  in  the 
book  of  Jeremiah  which  gives  us  some  important  in- 
formation, and  yet  which  in  its  present  translation  is, 
I  think,  quite,  if  not  altogether,  unintelligible.  It  is  the 
thirty-second  chapter  of  the  book  of  Jeremiah,  the  pas- 
sage beginning  with  the  eleventh  verse.  This  passage 
tells  us  how,  during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Nebu- 
chadrezzar, Jeremiah  purchased  a  parcel  of  land  in  his 
home  town  Anathoth  from  Hanameel,  his  cousin,  and 
they  subscribed  and  sealed  the  record  before  witnesses 
who  attached  their  seals  and  weighed  out  the  money 
in  scales.    Then  Jeremiah  took  the  record  of  purchase, 


122  Bible  and  Spade 

the  closed  (the  law  and  the  statutes1)  and  the  open,  and 
he  gave  the  deed  of  purchase  to  Baruch,  son  of  Neriah, 
in  the  presence  of  Hanameel  his  kinsman  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  witnesses  who  had  witnessed  the  deed, 
and  commanded  that  it  should  be  put  in  an  earthen 
pot  and  buried  in  the  ground.  Now  at  the  time  when 
this  passage  received  its  final  touches  the  scribes  did 
not  understand  what  had  been  done,  because  customs 
had  changed  completely,  so  when  they  came  to  the 
statement  of  a  deed  sealed  or  closed,  and  open,  they 
understood  this  as  having  a  mystic  reference  to  the 
Law,  and  one  of  them  actually  wrote  on  the  margin  of 
the  copy,  after  the  word  sealed,  the  Law  and  the  statutes. 
We  find  many  such  little  notes,  where  scribes  have  tried 
to  interpret  the  prophecies  in  the  light  of  the  Penta- 
teuch. Eliminate  this  note  and  the  whole  passage  is 
clear.  It  is  a  description  of  the  regular  method  of 
making  contracts,  deeds  of  sale,  and  the  like  in  Baby- 
lonia. The  contract  was  written  on  a  clay  tablet, 
which  was  closed  or  sealed  by  putting  around  it  an 
envelope  of  clay,  on  which  the  substance  of  the  con- 
tract was  again  written.  Witnesses  attached  their 
seals  to  this,  it  was  given  to  a  banker  or  safe-deposit 
man,  if  we  may  so  call  him,  who  put  it  in  an  earthen 
jar  for  safe-keeping  with  other  records  and  frequently 
or  ordinarily  buried  it  in  the  ground,  which  was  the 
common  safe  deposit  of  the  ordinary  men  in  small 


1  This  gloss  is  not  in  the  old  Greek  translation  known  as  the 
Septuagint,  or  LXX.  The  Greek  Jeremiah  is  one-eighth  smaller 
than  the  Hebrew.  Passages  occurring  in  the  Hebrew  only  are 
under  suspicion. 


History  and  Prophecy  123 

places.  On  fulfilment  of  the  contract,  the  ordinary 
practice  was  to  break  off  the  outer  clay  envelope.  We 
have  found  thousands  of  such  documents  in  the  various 
Babylonian  towns  and  cities,  dating  from  some  time 
in  the  fourth  millennium  B.  C.  on  up  almost  to  the  be- 
ginning of  our  era.  It  was  in  1887, 1  think,  that,  read- 
ing the  book  of  Jeremiah,  I  noticed  for  the  first  time 
the  real  meaning  of  this  passage  and  presented  my  re- 
sults to  the  Biblical  scholars  of  this  country  in  session 
in  June  of  the  following  year.  A  little  later,  visiting 
Professor  Sayce  in  Oxford,  I  called  his  attention  to  the 
passage,  my  interpretation  of  it,  and  my  prediction,  as 
a  result  of  that  interpretation,  that  we  should  ulti- 
mately find  in  Palestine,  as  we  had  found  in  Babylonia, 
clay  tablets  containing  records.  He  accepted  my  con- 
clusion instantly.  Just  at  that  time  came  the  dis- 
covery at  Tel  el-Amarna  of  almost  400  clay  tablets, 
letters  from  Egyptian  governors,  allies,  and  subject 
kings,  from  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Mesopotamia,  Syria, 
and  Palestine,  but  from  a  period  almost  700  years  be- 
fore Jeremiah's  time. 

A  further  examination  of  the  Bible  and  the  use  of 
words  designating  writing  and  books  and  the  material 
for  the  same  contained  therein,  shows  that  up  to  about 
700  B.  C.  clay  tablets  were  used.  By  the  close  of  the 
next  century,  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah,  books  were 
written  on  papyrus,  as  in  Egypt,  but  contracts  still 
continued  to  be  written  on  clay  tablets.  If  we  could 
only  put  our  spades  in  the  right  places,  both  in  Pales- 
tine and  in  Babylonia,  we  should  probably  find  con- 
temporary records  of  Israelitish  and  Jewish  kings, 


124  Bible  and  Spade 

statesmen,  and  prophets,  precisely  as  we  have  done  in 
Babylonia.  Heretofore  we  have  had  little  success  in 
doing  this.  Something  less  than  ten  clay  tablets  have 
been  found  in  Palestinian  explorations,  the  greater 
number  from  the  period  antedating  the  Hebrew  con- 
quest, two  from  the  time  of  Ashur-bani-pal  of  Assyria, 
one  written  by  a  resident  Assyrian  official  of  Gezer  in 
Assyrian,  but  nothing  in  Hebrew,  although  some  of  the 
letters  written  from  Jerusalem  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury B.  C.  in  the  Babylonian  language  were  evidently 
composed  by  people  speaking  the  native  Canaanitish 
or  Hebrew  language,  and  even  have  explanatory 
glosses  in  that  language. 

I  think  that  not  only  in  Palestine  but  also  in  Baby- 
lonia we  may  hope  to  find  clay  tablets  written  by  Jews. 
Excavating  at  Nippur,  we  had  the  good  fortune  to  dis- 
cover a  number  of  tablets  the  witnesses  to  which  were, 
evidently  Jews.  They  bore  such  familiar  Bible  names 
as  Adoram  and  Gadaliah,  Haggai  and  Hammaniah, 
Menahem  and  Mattaniah,  Benjamin,  Nathaniel,  Sim- 
eon, and  others  of  the  same  sort.  We  already  knew 
from  objects  found  in  Nippur  that  that  ancient  city 
was  the  site  of  a  considerable  Jewish  settlement  in 
the  post-Christian  period;  the  names  on  these  tablets 
showed  us  that  there  must  have  been  many  Jews  in 
that  immediate  neighborhood  shortly  after  the  Exile. 
Now,  in  the  book  of  Ezekiel,  we  are  told  that  the  Jewish 
captives  were  settled  by  the  river  Kebar  or  Chebar, 
in  the  land  of  the  Chaldeans,  by  the  side  of  which  was 
the  ruined  mound  of  Abib.  The  tablets  containing 
these  Jewish  names  found  in  Nippur  contained  also  the 


History  and  Prophecy  125 

mention  of  the  canal  Kabaru,  which  is  the  Babylonian 
form  of  the  Hebrew  Kebar,  in  or  close  to  Nippur.  I 
have  always  dreamed  that  some  day  when  we  complete 
those  excavations  at  Nippur  we  shall  find  a  Jewish 
synagogue  or  some  sort  of  place  of  worship,  and  clay 
tablets  containing  sections  of  the  Pentateuch  or  of  the 
Psalms,  or  it  may  be  even  of  the  prophecies.  What  a 
find  that  would  be ! 

The  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  inscriptions  thus  in 
many  ways  elucidate  and,  to  use  a  common  expression, 
confirm  the  narrative  of  the  Bible,  and  the  prophets. 
It  was  supposed  that,  this  being  the  case,  they  would 
peculiarly  elucidate  and  confirm  the  book  of  Daniel, 
and  indeed  the  editors  of  the  great  International  Com- 
mentary assigned  the  book  of  Daniel  to  me  on  the 
ground  that  a  commentary  on  that  book  should  be 
written  by  one  familiar  with  Babylonian  records.  As 
I  hope  to  show,  those  records  do  elucidate  the  book  of 
Daniel,  but  so  far  from  confirming  in  the  ordinary  sense 
the  historic  character  of  that  book,  they  show  us  that 
history  is  strangely  turned  about  and  confused  in  it. 
Belshazzar  is  in  our  book  of  Daniel  the  son  of  Nebu- 
chadrezzar and  his  successor  as  king  of  Babylon. 
Babylon  is  taken  in  his  reign  by  Darius  the  Mede  and 
destroyed.  Now,  in  point  of  fact,  there  were  several 
kings  between  Nebuchadrezzar  and  Belshazzar,  and 
Belshazzar  was  not  king  of  Babylon,  but  the  son  of 
King  Nabonidus,  who  was  no  blood  relation  whatever 
to  Nebuchadrezzar,  whom  he  succeeded  with  several 
reigns  between.  Belshazzar  was  not  king  but  crown 
prince.    Nabonidus,  a  priest  by  origin,  was  the  pacifist 


126  Bible  and  Spade 

king  to  whom  I  have  alluded  before,  interested  in  ex- 
ploring the  antiquities  of  the  past  and  reforming  the 
religion  of  the  present.  Belshazzar,  his  son,  was  as- 
signed an  important  part  in  the  government.  At 
least,  in  the  records  we  have  continual  mention, of 
Belshazzar  as  in  this  place  or  that,  when  Nabonidus 
was  in  some  other  place.  It  was  Cyrus  the  Persian  and 
not  Darius  the  Mede  who  took  Babylon,  put  an  end 
to  Nabonidus's  reign,  and  perhaps  slew  Belshazzar; 
but,  so  far  from  destroying  Babylon,  he  treated  it  with 
great  favor.  Apparently  the  Babylonian  priests  of  the 
temple  of  Marduk,  outraged  by  Nabonidus's  reforms, 
made  his  victory  possible;  and  Cyrus's  inscriptions 
show  us  that  he  ascribed  his  victory  to  Marduk. 
What  then  is  the  meaning  of  the  statements  in  the 
book  of  Daniel?    Are  they  pure  fabrications? 

On  the  rocks  in  the  pass  of  Behistun,  on  the  road  from 
Babylonia  to  Persia,  the  Persian  king,  Darius,  a  suc- 
cessor of  Cyrus  but  of  a  different  family,  engraved  a 
monumental  inscription.  For  this  purpose  the  rock 
was  carefully  smoothed,  all  faulty  places  were  cut  out 
and  filled  in  with  strong  smooth  stone,  and  the  whole 
surface  brought  to  a  high  finish.  It  must  have  been  a 
colossal  work,  for  the  bottom  of  the  inscription  is  300 
feet  above  the  floor  of  the  pass.  On  this  rock  Darius 
inscribed  in  three  languages  the  account  of  his  wars 
and  his  victories.  It  was  the  inscriptions  in  Persian 
and  Babylonian  which  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  deci- 
phered, and  which  thus  became  the  key  to  and  the 
foundation  of  all  following  interpretations  of  Babylon- 
ian and  Assyrian  inscriptions.    From  the  Behistun  in- 


History  and  Prophecy  127 

scription  it  appears  that  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign 
Darius  had  to  meet  and  put  down  innumerable  revolts 
in  all  parts  of  his  domains.  Two  of  these  revolts  were 
in  Babylonia.  Darius  says:  "Further  there  was  a 
Babylonian,  Nidintubel  his  name, — who  rebelled  in 
Babylon,  lying  to  the  people  and  saying,  'I  am  Neb- 
uchadrezzar, son  of  Nabonidus.'  Then  all  the  Baby- 
lonians went  over  to  that  Nidintubel,  Babylon  re- 
belled; he  made  himself  king  over  Babylon."  Darius 
marched  to  Babylon  and  joined  battle  with  the  pre- 
tender. He  won  the  victory  and  pursued  the  pretender 
to  Babylon,  which  he  took,  capturing  and  slaying  him. 
But  a  little  later,  while  Darius  was  in  Persia  and  Media 
putting  down  revolts  there,  the  Babylonians  again 
rebelled  under  a  certain  Arakhu,  an  Armenian,  who 
"deceived  the  people  of  Babylon,  saying:  'I  am 
Nebuchadrezzar,  son  of  Nabonidus. '  Thereupon,  the 
people  of  Babylon  rebelled  against  me  and  went  over 
to  this  Arakhu.  He  took  Babylon;  he  became  king  in 
Babylon."  This  time  Darius  sent  an  army  against 
Babylon  and,  as  he  says,  by  the  help  of  Ormuzd,  won 
the  victory,  "took  Babylon,  smote  the  army  of  Baby- 
lon, the  rebels,  and  took  them  captive."  We  have, 
furthermore,  contract  tablets  from  the  reign  of  one  of 
these  Nebuchadrezzars,"  presumably  the  second,  show- 
ing that  he  reigned  about  two  years. 

Now  from  Herodotus  we  learn  that  Darius  did  very 
severely  punish  Babylon  at  the  time  of  this  second 
rebellion.  His  treatment  of  it  was  quite  unlike  that 
friendly  treatment  which  Cyrus  had  accorded  it,  pre- 
cisely as  the  attitude  of  Babylon  toward  him  was  differ- 


128  Bible  and  Spade 

ent  from  that  of  Babylon  toward  Cyrus.  The  reason 
for  this  is  clear.  Cyrus  came  in  agreement  with  the 
priests  of  Marduk,  ascribing  his  victory  to  Marduk. 
Darius  was  a  Zoroastrian,  alien  in  race  and  hostile 
in  faith  to  Babylon  and  Marduk,  and  he  ascribes 
his  victory  to  Ormuzd.  Now  observe  that  both 
these  pretenders  called  themselves  by  the  name  of 
Nebuchadrezzar.  They  professed  to  be  a  sort  of 
Nebuchadrezzar  redivivus,  that  same  story  of  strange 
expectation  which  showed  itself  in  Britain  looking  for 
the  return  of  an  Arthur,  in  Germany  looking  for  the 
return  of  a  Charlemagne  or  a  Frederick  Barbarossa, 
or  even,  if  we  may  use  that  comparison,  the  Roman 
empire  looking  for  the  return  of  Nero,  the  last  of  the 
great  Csesar's  descendants.  From  the  book  of  Daniel 
we  see  what  the  name  Nebuchadrezzar  meant,  what 
legends  gathered  about  him.  He  was  the  great  man  of 
Babylon,  and  the  recent  excavations  of  Babylon  itself 
have  shown  his  title  to  greatness.  He  was  the  great 
man  of  his  day  about  whom  all  thought  centred. 
When  one  spoke  of  Babylon,  one  thought  of  Nebu- 
chadrezzar and  one  thought  naturally,  also,  when  the 
capture  of  Babylon  was  spoken  of,  not  of  Cyrus,  for 
his  capture  of  it  was,  as  stated,  one  which  amounted  to 
nothing,  but  of  its  capture  by  Darius,  which  involved 
a  terrible  punishment;  and  the  distinction  between 
Cyrus,  whose  attitude  toward  the  religion  of  Babylon 
was  friendly,  and  Darius,  whose  attitude  was  hostile, 
is  marked  by  the  term  Median,  applied  to  the  latter. 
He  was  different  from  Cyrus;  if,  then,  Cyrus  were  Per- 
sian, Darius  must  belong  to  that  old  Median  kingdom 


History  and  Prophecy  129 

which  had  played  so  great  a  part  a  little  before  the  time 
of  Cyrus,  and  of  which  Cyrus's  kingdom  was  the  heir. 

This  is  the  method  of  folk  history.  I  found  a  most 
interesting  exhibition  of  this  in  exploring  a  good  many 
years  ago  the  folk-lore  of  the  Wends,  a  little  enclave  of 
Slavonic  peoples  on  the  borders  of  Prussia  and  Saxony, 
retaining,  in  the  midst  of  their  German  surroundings, 
a  part  at  least  of  their  Slavonic  identity,  both  in  lan- 
guage and  in  customs.  They  had  a  number  of  stories 
which  we  know  as  Grimm's  fairy-tales,  but  which  ap- 
peared among  them  in  a  peculiar  form.  Mixed  up 
with  the  old  bogies  and  mythical  legendary  figures  of 
the  fairy-stories,  as  we  know  them,  are  Frederick  the 
Great  of  Prussia  and  his  general,  Ziethen.  Folk-lore 
knows  no  time.  All  ages  are  apt  to  be  confused  in  it. 
It  figures  the  great  episodes.  Those  things  which 
made  a  deep  impression  are  held  on  to  and  passed  down 
as  part  of  the  folk  tradition,  mixed  in  with  the  old, 
old  stories  which  we  call  fairy-tales.  The  great  man 
which  that  part  of  the  country  knew,  whom  it  felt  and 
experienced,  was  Frederick  the  Great,  and  next  to  him 
his  Hussar  general,  Ziethen.  Here  we  have  in  the  book 
of  Daniel  precisely  the  same  sort  of  thing. 

I  should  like  to  tell  you  also  about  the  story  of  the 
three  children  thrust  into  the  fiery  furnace  by  Nebu- 
chadrezzar, reference  to  which  actually  appears  in  the 
book  of  Jeremiah,1  and  much  more,  did  time  permit. 
But  if  these  things  are  not  history,  one  may  say,  what 
place  have  they  in  an  inspired  book  ?  They  are  history, 
but  they  are  history  of  different  sort  from  that  re- 
»Jer.  29:21,22. 


130  Bible  and  Spade 

corded  in  Woodrow  Wilson's  history  of  the  United 
States,  for  instance.  You  must  broaden  your  concep- 
tion of  history,  as  I  tried  to  show  in  dealing  with  the 
early  stories  of  Genesis.  History  you  can  get  out  of 
this  book.  It  was  never  meant  to  tell  you  history  in 
the  sense  that  Woodrow  Wilson  tells  you  the  history  of 
the  United  States;  but  if  you  will  use  it  for  what  it 
was  intended  to  be  used  for  and  what  it  should  be  used 
for,  you  will  find  that  our  new  knowledge  has  made  it 
a  new  and  vastly  greater  book.  It  is  one  of  the  stir- 
ring books  of  the  Old  Testament.  All  these  tales  and 
stories,  woven  in  with  the  history  of  the  past,  had  been 
handed  down  among  the  people,  not  in  Hebrew,  for  the 
people  had  ceased  to  speak  Hebrew  as  their  common 
tongue,  but  in  Aramaean.  Then  came  the  persecution 
of  the  Jews  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  when  nation 
and  religion  alike  approached  extinction,  and  there 
arose  that  grand  old  man  Mattathias,  the  faithful 
priest,  with  his  five  valiant  sons,  who  dared  not  only 
to  refuse  to  sacrifice  to  the  heathen  god,  but  who  killed 
on  the  altar  the  official  sent  to  compel  the  people  of  his 
home  town,  Modin,  to  sacrifice.  And  then  they  fled  to 
the  mountains,  and  the  old  man  succumbed  to  the 
hardships,  but  his  valiant  sons  continued  the  struggle, 
until  at  last  they  won  not  only  freedom  and  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  but  national  in- 
dependence and  a  strong  kingdom.  But  one  of  the 
great  agents  in  this,  the  man  who  helped  with  his  pen 
and  with  his  tongue,  was  the  writer  who  took  those  old 
tales  with  their  stories  of  faith  and  heroism  and  pro- 
mulgated them  in  a  new  way,  the  way  of  the  new  proph- 


History  and  Pr&phecy  131 

ecy,  which  inspired  the  people  with  courage  to  resist, 
which  convinced  them  that  their  God  would  be  with 
them  as  He  had  been  in  the  old  times  of  which  the 
stories  told. 

I  would  like  to  dwell  longer  on  this  book  of  Daniel, 
but  I  may  here  add  only  this,  that  one-half  of  it, 
that  which  we  commonly  call  the  Apocalypse,  was  not 
written  in  Aramaean,  like  the  folk-tales,  but  in  Hebrew, 
for  with  the  revival  of  Judaism  came  the  attempt  to 
restore  the  ancient  sacred  language.  But  wisely  did 
the  great  writer,  whatever  his  name  may  be,  we  know 
not,  combine  the  old  folk  stories,  in  the  folk  tongue, 
with  the  glorious  spiritual  meaning  he  put  into  them, 
with  his  new  vision,  written  in  the  sacred  language  of 
his  people,  the  beginning  of  that  apocalyptic,  or  vision 
of  the  future,  which  in  the  Bible  ends  with  the  Reve- 
lation of  Saint  John  the  Divine.  Daniel  is  a  grand 
book! 


IV 

HEBREW  PSALMODY 

Recent  New  Testament  criticism  has  tended,  on  the 
whole,  strongly  toward  conservatism,  the  restoration  of 
the  old  traditions  of  the  authorship  of  the  Gospels  and 
of  the  Epistles  of  Saint  Paul.  These  receive  an  early 
date  in  the  latest  literature  on  the  New  Testament. 
Its  method  of  treatment  of  the  text  also  tends  to  be 
scientific  and  careful,  demanding  objective  evidence 
before  making  changes,  refusing  to  yield  to  the  fasci- 
nations of  subjective  speculation.  The  tendency  of 
recent  Old  Testament  criticism  has  seemed  to  be  rather 
the  opposite.  There  are,  it  is  true,  a  number  of  voices 
raised  in  protest  against  the  methods  of  the  latter-day 
school  of  critics,  but  these,  so  far  at  least  as  sound  is 
concerned,  still  seem  to  be  in  the  majority.  Their 
tendency  is  to  divide  up  every  book  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment into  as  many  fragments  as  possible,  to  reject  all 
traditions  as  worthless,  and  to  substitute  for  them 
speculations  of  their  own.  Their  treatment  of  the 
text  is  the  treatment  of  subjective  speculation.  This 
one  emends  the  text  because  he  thinks  that,  at  the  day 
at  which  he  supposes  the  words  were  written,  the  writer 
must  have  said  something  quite  different;  or  because  it 
does  not  correspond  with  his  idea  of  proper  outward 
form.    If  it  is  poetry,  he  knows  the  methods  of  He- 

132 


'  Hebrew  Psalmody  133 

brew  poetry,  which  he  has  evolved  out  of  his  brain  and 
study,  and  he  makes  the  Hebrew  text  fit  his  theory. 
Now  this  is,  of  course,  a  natural  reaction  against  the 
extreme  literalism  of  former  ages.  They  accepted  the 
evidence  of  any  sort  of  tradition  without  investigation, 
and  their  treatment  of  the  Hebrew  Masoretic1  text 
was  that  God  had  made  his  angels  write  the  book  in 
heaven  and  had  personally  seen  to  it  that  every  dot 
and  point  was  put  in  its  proper  place.  The  one  extreme 
is  as  bad  as  the  other.  We  used  to  be  taught  the  dogma 
of  an  infallible  text,  and  sacrosanct  tradition  to  be 
accepted  literally,  and  now  we  are  in  the  reaction  which 
resulted  from  that  false  extreme. 

The  book  that  has  been  the  worst  mishandled  of  all 
books  in  the  Old  Testament  is  the  book  of  Psalms, 
and  each  succeeding  commentator  has  surpassed  in 
this  his  predecessors.  But  that  is  an  exaggeration.  I 
think  the  limit  was  reached  by  the  late  Professor  Cheyne 
of  Oxford,  a  most  lovable,  sweet  Christian  soul,  a  most 
distinguished  scholar,  whose  mind  was  so  acute  and 
original  that  he  could  not  be  content  with  anything 
on  earth,  and  invented  new  places  for  himself.  His 
early  work  on  the  Psalms  was  good,  but  in  his  last 
book  his  translations  are  absolutely  unidentifiable 
with  the  Psalms  as  you  know  them  in  English,  or  as  I 
know  them  in  Hebrew.    He  has  substituted  new  coun- 

1  The  Hebrew  was  written  in  consonants  only.  This  was  the 
Bible  of  the  Greek  translation  and  of  the  time  of  Christ.  In 
the  early  Christian  centuries  the  Hebrew  scribes  added  the  vowel 
points,  and  various  notes  and  punctuations.  These  are  known 
as  the  Masorah,  and  the  Hebrew  consonantal  text  with  this 
Masorah  added  is  the  Masoretic  text. 


134  Bible  and  Spade 

tries  for  those  that  are  told  of  in  the  Bible,  countries 
that  no  one  but  himself  ever  heard  of,  especially  a  cer- 
tain Jerahmeel.  Compare  the  translation  in  one  of 
his  earlier  books  of  the  first  two  or  three  lines  of  the 
second  stanza  of  the  42d  Psalm,  with  his  latest  transla- 
tion taken  from  the  imagined  Psalms  which  he  ulti- 
mately evolved  out  of  the  Psalter: 

"My  soul  upon  me  is  bowed  down;  therefore  will  I  think  upon 
Thee,  from  the  land  of  Jordan  and  of  Hermonim,  from  the 
little  mountain. 

Flood  calls  unto  flood  at  the  sound  of  thy  cataracts,  all  thy 
breakers  and  billows  have  gone  over  me." 

Here  is  the  translation  of  the  same  from  Cheyne's 
later  revised  text: 

"Preserve  me  (O  Yahwe)  my  God,  |  from  the  tribes  of  the 

Arabians, 
From  the  race  of  the  Jerahmeelites  |  rescue  thou  me. 
Rouse  thee,  O  God  of  my  succour;  |  why  dost  thou  forget  me, 
While  I  walk  tremblingly,  |  the  Arabians  pressing  me  hard?" 

Other  recent  commentators  do  not,  however,  stand 
so  far  behind.  Professor  Briggs,  who  did  such  notable 
work  for  Biblical  scholarship  in  other  fields,  in  his  com- 
mentary in  the  International  Series  changed  the  text 
of  practically  every  Psalm  in  the  Psalter,  and  in  many 
cases  very  considerably,  partly  because  of  his  concep- 
tion of  psalmody  and  his  theories  of  the  date  and  oc- 
casion of  the  various  Psalms,  partly  because  he  had 
evolved  a  scheme  of  Hebrew  poetry  with  which  the 
Psalms  did  not  agree.    Like  a  schoolmaster  correcting 


Hebrew  Psalmody  135 

the  exercises  of  his  pupils,  he  calls  up  each  Psalm  in  turn 
and  corrects  its  poetry,  not  only  excising  words  which 
will  not  fit  into  his  scheme  of  measure,  but  mercilessly 
cutting  off  whole  verses,  or  transposing  their  members, 
thus  producing  a  machine-like  evenness  which  will 
scarcely  appeal  to  those  who  have  loved  the  Psalms  for 
their  quaint  and  varied  rhythm.  He  has  made  the 
text  conform  to  the  exigencies  of  his  metrical  system. 
Kent  of  Yale,  who  has  put  forth  so  many  books  which 
are  so  abundantly  used  in  schools  and  colleges,  has 
followed  Briggs  in  some  of  the  most  objectionable  fea- 
tures of  his  commentary  in  his  book  of  Songs,  Hymns, 
and  Prayers  of  the  Old  Testament. 

One  radical  error  which  we  find  in  all  these  commen- 
taries is  the  false  conception  of- the  purpose  of  the 
Psalter,  as  though  it  were  a  collection  of  poems  by  some 
court  poet  and  not  a  collection  of  liturgies,  chants,  and 
hymns  for  the  temple  or  synagogue  services.  So  the 
critics  have  sought  to  attach  each  Psalm  to  some  par- 
ticular historical  event,  and  have  imagined  some  poet 
wandering  off  to  this  place  or  that  and  composing  an 
effusion  about  the  king  or  for  the  king,  dealing  with  con- 
temporary events.  Take  up  your  own  church  hymn- 
book  and  examine  it.  Take  up  the  great  chants  of  the 
Christian  Church  which  have  come  down  through  the 
ages,  the  Te  Deum,  the  Magnificat,  the  Nunc  Dimittis, 
the  Gloria  in  Excelsis.  What  sort  of  fate  would  they 
have  if  you  treated  them  so?  Luther's  hymns  or 
Wesley's  hymns  are  magnificent  hymns,  yet  you  get 
no  allusions  in  them  to  outside  events.  They  are 
concerned  with  the  soul  of  man  and  with  the  exigencies 


136  Bible  and  Spade 

of  worship.  This  is  the  line  from  which  one  must 
examine  the  Psalter.  Prophecies  are  concerned  with, 
outside  events.  You  may  feel  sure  that  you  have  not 
comprehended  your  prophecy  unless  you  have  identified 
its  connection  with  contemporary  political,  social,  or 
economic  events  or  conditions.  With  the  Psalter  the 
situation  is  exactly  the  reverse. 

Again,  these  writers  have  failed  to  study  and  ap- 
propriate the  great  mass  of  ancient  liturgies  of  a  char- 
acter and  form  very  close  to  the  Hebrew  which  have 
been  unearthed  in  Babylonia  in  the  recent  years,  and 
which  throw  a  perfect  flood  of  light  on  the  outward 
form,  the  ritual  use,  the  thought  and  ideas  of  our  He- 
brew Psalter.  Let  me  take  one  single  instance  of  com- 
plete misunderstanding  resulting  from  this.  These 
modern  critics  have  brought  the  Psalter  down  to  a  very, 
very  late  period,  and  one  of  their  grounds  for  dating 
it  so  late  is  the  emphasis  which  it  puts  on  the  poor  and 
needy.  Israel  is  the  pious,  Israel  is  the  poor,  the  needy, 
the  humble.  The  heathen  are  the  godless.  The 
heathen  are  the  rich  and  mighty.  These  conditions, 
said  they,  show  a  time  when  the  Jews  were  a  poor, 
petty  people,  downtrodden,  and  crying  out  of  their 
humility  and  their  need,  developing  piety  in  place  of 
patriotism  and  relying  on  petitions  to  God  rather  than 
on  force  of  arms. 

Let  me  read  you  first  a  few  lines  from  some  hymns 
and  prayers  found  in  the  Theban  Necropolis  dating 
from  about  1350  to  1200  B.  C,  at,  or  before  the  time  of 
Moses.  The  general  spirit  of  these  hymns,  praying 
for  deliverance  from  trouble  caused  by  their  own  sins 


Hebrew  Psalmody  137 

and  from  the  bondage  resulting  from  those  sins,  setting 
forth  the  sweetness  of  the  love  and  mercy  of  God,  with 
an  ardent  desire  to  make  this  known  to  all  men,  re- 
minds one  much  of  our  Psalms. 

Amen-Re  is  the  god  addressed,  "the  lord  to  him  that 
calls  upon  him,"  "who  comes  at  the  voice  of  the  dis- 
tressed humble  one;  who  gives  breath  to  him  who  is 
wretched."  Hear  now  this  prayer  in  which  the  peti- 
tioner, representing  himself  as  an  humble  man,  calls 
on  Amen-Re: 

"Who  comes  at  the  voice  of  the  humble  man. 
I  call  upon  thee  when  I  am  in  distress: 
And  thou  comest  that  thou  mayest  save  me: 
That  thou  mayest  give  breath  to  him  that  is  wretched, 
That  thou  mayest  save  me  that  am  in  bondage." 

Still  much  more  striking  is  the  resemblance  in  this 
regard  of  the  old  Sumerian  liturgies  and  rituals  to  the 
Hebrew.  Of  the  ritual  we  have  evidence  in  a  number 
of  representations  of  the  worshipping  king  approach- 
ing the  god,  on  various  seal  cylinders  and  tablets.  The 
god  regularly  sits  upon  his  throne.  The  king,  repre- 
sented as  a  most  lowly  penitent  and  clothed  accord- 
ingly, is  brought  before  him  by  a  priest  who  leads  him 
by  the  hand.  The  liturgies  for  this  ritual  which  have 
come  down  to  us  are  very  numerous.  The  petitioner, 
whoever  he  may  be  (and  in  many,  if  not  in  most  cases, 
these  liturgies  are  for  royal  suppliants),  must  identify 
himself  with  the  poor,  the  needy,  and  afflicted,  and 
designate  himself  as  poor,  needy,  afflicted,  and  the 
like,  when  he  comes  as  a  suppliant  to  the  god.    On  the 


138  Bible  and  Spade 

other  hand,  the  enemy  against  whom  he  directs  his 
prayer  is  regularly  represented  as  the  rich  or  mighty, 
precisely  as  in  the  Hebrew  Psalms.  How  old  this  use 
is,  which  recent  Psalm  critics  have  called  late,  may  be 
seen  from  the  fact  that  the  earliest  penitentials  of  this 
sort  that  we  possess  date  from  somewhere  about 
3000  B.  C.  And  we  have  such  liturgies  from  that  date 
until  about  97  B.  C,  always  in  the  same  ancient  church 
language,  the  Sumerian.  These  were  copied  from  age 
to  age,  and  we  can  detect  little  changes  that  were  made 
from  time  to  time.  A  liturgy  originally  intended  for 
use  in  the  shrine  of  Enlil  at  Nippur  is  made  available 
for  use  in  other  shrines  by  the  insertion  of  local  or 
divine  names  appropriate  to  those  shrines.  The 
liturgy  originally  written  for  one  god  may  be  made 
appropriate  for  the  service  of  another  god  in  the  same 
way.  There  are  liturgies  in  which  place  is  left  to  in- 
sert the  name  of  some  different  or  additional  god;  a 
number  of  gods  are  mentioned  and  then  an  unknown 
god  or  goddess.  There  were  a  number  of  scribes 
connected  with  each  Babylonian  temple,  busy  in  ob- 
taining, collecting,  and  transcribing  liturgies  for  that 
temple,  and  the  older  the  liturgy  the  more  highly  it 
seems  to  have  been  esteemed. 

We  have  in  one  of  our  Psalms  curious  evidence, 
hitherto  overlooked,  that  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem 
the  same  loving  care  was  expended  on  acquiring, 
copying,  and  transmitting  liturgies.  The  88th  Psalm 
is  peculiar  in  the  whole  Psalter,  first  because  it  has 
two  headings,  ascribing  it  to  different  authors  or  choir 
guilds,  the  Sons  of  Korah,  and  Heman  the  Ezrahite, 


Hebrew  Psalmody  139 

respectively,  and  designating  it  for  different  uses,  the 
one,  accompanied  by  the  flute  for  making  penance, 
and  the  other,  for  a  form  of  responsive  recitative  much 
favored  in  Israel,  called  raaskil;  and  secondly  because 
it  is  the  one  pessimistic  Psalm  in  the  Psalter.  Every 
other  Psalm  assumes  a  favorable  answer  to  the  peti- 
tions offered  to  God,  and  the  acceptance  of  the  sacri- 
fice connected  therewith.  Moreover,  this  Psalm  lacks 
organization.  Regularly  Psalms  are  developed  after 
a  certain  general  method,  setting  forth  the  troubles 
and  disasters  of  the  petitioner,  indicating  the  enemy 
from  whom  they  come,  sometimes  two  or  three  times 
over  and  with  less  or  greater  detail,  finally  assuming 
the  favor  of  God  toward  the  worshipper,  and  acceptance 
of  the  sacrifice,  with  declaration  of  the  same  by  the 
sacrificing  priest;  then  perhaps  a  curse  against  the  evil- 
doers, with  rejoicing  of  the  petitioner  for  his  deliver- 
ance, and  at  the  end,  and  sometimes  at  other  points, 
according  to  the  number  of  sacrifices,  outbursts  of 
sacrificial  shouts,  followed  by  a  benediction.  In  this 
Psalm,  however,  there  is  simply  a  continuous  repeti- 
tion of  the  woes  of  the  petitioner,  with  no  proper  end- 
ing. When  you  come  to  the  point  where  you  expect 
to  proceed  to  God's  answer  to  the  prayer,  you  find 
these  words  (8th  verse,  American  Revision) : 

"lam  shut  up  and  I  cannot  come  forth." 

Then  starts  another  lamentation,  the  last  verse  of 
which  closes  thus:  "Lover  and  friend  hast  thou  put 
far  from  me,  and  mine  acquaintance — darkness,"  which 
is  both  incomplete  and  grammatically  unintelligible. 


140  Bible  and  Spade 

Now,  "I  am  shut  up  and  I  cannot  come  forth"  is, 
literally  translated,  "Finished,  does  not  go  on."  That 
is  the  same  sort  of  note,  not  in  the  same  words,  but 
expressing  the  same  sense,  which  we  find  in  Babylon- 
ian tablets  where  the  tablet  was  broken  or  injured  and 
the  copyist  could  read  no  further.  The  text  came  to 
an  end.  The  first  eight  verses  are,  in  fact,  a  fragment 
of  a  Psalm.  The  second  half  is  another  fragment. 
The  scribe  came  to  the  middle  of  a  verse  where  his 
tablet  or  his  manuscript  was  broken  or  defaced,  he 
could  decipher  nothing  further,  and  simply  wrote 
"darkness,"  that  is  "unintelligible."  But  these  two 
fragments  of  Psalms  were  lovingly  preserved,  carefully 
copied,  and  kept  in  the  temple  library  at  Jerusalem. 
The  two  fragments  were  copied  on  one  tablet,  or  one 
sheet  of  papyrus,  and  the  headings  of  both  Psalms, 
with  the  musical  directions  and  the  designations  of 
the  choir  guild  from  which  they  were  derived,  placed 
at  the  top.  Old  things  were  especially  valuable  and 
might  not  be  thrown  away.  They  might,  however,  be 
changed  and  adapted  for  new  occasions,  of  which  we 
find  abundant  evidence  in  the  Hebrew  Psalms  as  in 
the  Babylonian. 

Until  those  Babylonian  liturgies  were  unearthed  and 
translated,  we  had  supposed  that  Hebrew  poetry  was 
quite  sui  generis.  The  characteristic  mark  of  Hebrew 
poetry  is  not  metre,  in  the  sense  of  balanced  verse  with 
a  certain  number  and  order  of  syllables  and  quantities; 
it  is  not  rhyme  or  alliteration,  like  the  old  Saxon; 
but  what  we  call  parallelism.  The  same  idea  is  re- 
peated in  different  forms,  or  different  ideas  are  repeated 


Hebrew  Psalmody  141 

in  the  same  form.  That  is  the  essential  element  of 
Hebrew  poetry.  You  may  find  occasional  rhyme, 
and  occasional  alliteration,  or  rather,  assonance,  i.  e.} 
the  juxtaposition  and  accumulation  of  the  same  or 
similar  sounds.  There  is  always,  also,  a  rough  beat, 
count;  but  those  things  are  secondary  and  incidental. 
The  essential  element  of  Hebrew  poetry  is  alliteration. 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  Babylonian  and  Assyrian 
poetry.    Here  are  a  few  examples: 

"If  I  put  anything  down,  it  is  snatched  away, 
If  I  do  more  than  is  expected,  who  will  repay  me?" 

"He  has  dug  a  well  where  no  water  is, 
He  has  raised  a  husk  without  kernel." 

"Does  a  marsh  receive  the  price  of  its  reeds; 
Or  fields  the  price  of  their  vegetation?" 

"The  strong  live  by  their  own  wages; 
The  weak  by  the  wages  of  their  children."  * 

These  examples  are  not  taken  from  Babylonian  psalms, 
but  from  Babylonian  proverbs,  for  the  literature  of 
Babylonia  was  in  scope  also  curiously  like  the  Hebrew 
literature  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  Bible. 
They  had  a  wisdom  literature,  like  the  Hebrew,  con- 
sisting both  of  proverbs,  like  our  book  of  Proverbs,  and 
of  problem  discussions,  like  our  book  of  Job.  I  have 
given  these  examples  of  poetic  form  from  their  proverbs 
rather  than  from  their  liturgies,  because,  while  the 
poetry  of  the  liturgies  is  identical  in  principle  with  the 
1  Barton,  Archaeology  and  the  Bible. 


142  Bible  and  Spade 

poetry  of  the  Hebrew  Psalter,  the  resemblance  is  apt 
to  be  obscured  by  the  introduction  of  ritual  cries  or 
rubrical  notes,  as  also  by  the  repetition  ad  infinitum  of 
the  names  of  gods  and  goddesses. 

The  ritual  cries  and  the  formulae  of  the  Babylonian 
liturgies  are  as  strikingly  similar  to  the  Hebrew  as  is 
the  form  of  the  poetry.  A  marked  characteristic  of 
the  old  Sumerian  hymns  is  the  series  of  honorific  names 
with  which  they  frequently  commence,  those  of  Enlil, 
the  great  god  of  Nippur,  being  nine  in  number,  fairly 
well  conventionalized  and  traditionalized.  Turn  to  one 
of  the  great  and  early  Psalms  of  the  Hebrew  Psalter, 
the  18th  Psalm,  which  appears  also  in  a  slightly  vari- 
ant form  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  of  the  second 
book  of  Samuel,  and  observe  how  this  begins  with  a 
succession  of  honorific  names.  Yahaweh  is  addressed 
as  the  suppliant's  Rock,  Fortress,  Deliverer,  God,  Cliff, 
Shield,  Horn  of  Salvation,  High  Tower,  Refuge,  Savior. 
Apparently  here  also  there  are  nine  honorific  names; 
perhaps  ten,  but  it  is  a  little  uncertain  whether  certain 
words  are  epithets  of  a  name,  or  independent  names. 
The  object  of  this  use  of  honorific  names  is  clear  to 
any  one  who  is  used  to  liturgical  formulae,  for  it  is  some- 
thing that  we  have  carried  down  in  liturgies  to  our  own 
time.  I  suppose  the  original  thought  was  to  appease 
the  god  who  is  addressed  by  telling  of  his  glory  and 
his  honor,  precisely  as  one  might  appease  an  earthly 
king.  We  have  not  probably  that  intention  in  our 
modern  use,  but  it  is  a  natural  inclination  to  sing  the 
praises  of  him  whom  we  address,  to  "magnify"  him, 
to  use  our  common  word.    This  Psalm  is  the  most 


Hebrew  Psalmody  143 

conspicuous  instance  of  the  introduction  of  the  peti- 
tions of  the  liturgy  by  the  recital  of  numerous  names 
or  magnificent  epithets  of  the  deity  and  there  is  no 
other  case  where  we  have  so  many  names  put  together, 
but  a  similar  use  is  frequent  in  the  Psalms,  sometimes 
at  the  beginning  of  the  whole,  sometimes  at  the  begin- 
ning of  some  new  motive  of  the  liturgy. 

One  striking  minor  liturgical  phrase  which  is  common 
to  the  old  Sumerian  psalms  with  the  Hebrew,  is  the 
"How  long,"  or,  to  use  the  fuller  Sumerian  phrase, 
"How  long  the  heart."  This  is  used  in  the  Hebrew 
precisely  as  it  is  used  in  the  Sumerian  psalms.  It 
belongs  to  a  class  of  liturgies  which  Assyriologists  have 
designated  as  penitentials.  This  was  a  well-under- 
stood liturgical  formula  of  very  ancient  use,  connoting 
in  itself  a  whole  phrase  or  thought.  Hence  in  actual 
use  it  stands  quite  by  itself,  a  mere  cry,  both  in  the 
Sumerian  and  in  the  Hebrew.  The  best  instance  of 
its  ritual  value  in  the  Hebrew  is  Psalm  13,  which  com- 
mences with  four  "How  longs."  So  characteristic 
of  the  penitential  psalms  was  this  cry  that  both  Su- 
merian and  Hebrew  named  them  "How  longs."  We 
have  an  instance  of  this  in  the  74th  Psalm  (v.  9). 

In  the  old  Sumerian  liturgies  you  frequently  find  a 
psalm  commencing  with  a  half  verse,  which  is  really 
the  caption  of  the  psalm,  by  which  it  was  designated. 
Precisely  the  same  is  true  of  the  Hebrew.  You  have 
a  very  striking  instance  of  this  in  Psalm  68.  That  is 
a  great  triumph  hymn,  a  processional  liturgy,  based  on 
the  old  Ark  song  of  the  book  of  Numbers,  picturing  the 
march  of  Israel  into  and  its  conquest  of  Canaan. 


144  Bible  and  Spade 

Israel  is,  of  course,  called  the  poor,  the  lowly,  the  needy, 
the  technical  phrase  which  we  have  already  noticed. 
In  the  eleventh  verse  we  find  these  words  (American 
Revision) : 

"The  Lord  giveth  the  word; 
The  women  that  publish  the  tidings  are  a  great  host," 

which  are  really  a  rubric  directing  the  great  host  of 
women  singers  to  sing  at  this  point.  Then  follows  a 
succession  of  lines,  each  one  of  which  is  intelligible  in 
itself,  but  no  one  of  which  has  any  relation  to  what 
follows: 

"Kings  of  armies  flee,  they  flee; 
And  she  that  tarrieth  at  home  divideth  the  spoil." 

"When  ye  lie  among  the  sheepfolds." 

"The  wings  of  a  dove  covered  with  silver, 
And  her  pinions  with  yellow  gold." 

"When  the  Almighty  scattered  kings  therein." 

"It  snoweth  in  Zalmon." 

These  are  the  songs,  five  in  all,  which  the  rubric  directs 
the  women  to  sing,  each  being  named  by  its  first  line, 
precisely  as  in  the  Sumerian  psalmody,  where  we  have 
also  similar  liturgical  motives,  and  where  liturgies  were 
apt  to  consist  of  five  psalms  or  songs. 

The  Sumerian  psalms  were  associated  also  with  the 
use  of  certain  instruments  of  music,  that  is  to  say, 
some  psalms  are  ordered  to  be  accompanied  by  the 
flute,  others  by  some  other  sort  of  instrument.    The 


Hebrew  Psalmody  145 

headings  of  the  Hebrew  Psalms  show  us  the  same  use, 
the  flute  for  one  Psalm,  the  harp  for  another,  etc. 

Other  ritual  notes,  in  both  Sumerian  and  Hebrew 
Psalms,  indicate  the  time  and  sometimes  the  nature  of 
the  sacrifice,  with  cries  to  God  to  show  himself,  to 
"  lighten "  upon  them  (that  is,  in  the  sacrificial  fire),  to 
"stand  up,"  "stretch  forth  his  arm,"  and  much  more. 
We  find  at  the  close  of  some  of  the  Babylonian  hymns 
reference  to  the  offerings  which  are  presented,  evidently 
marking  the  point  in  the  liturgy  where  those  are  to  be 
presented,  just  as  also  in  the  Hebrew.  There  are  other 
similar  indications  of  various  ritual  acts,  ablutions, 
prostrations,  etc.,  in  both.  The  118th  Psalm  affords 
perhaps  the  best  example  from  which  to  study  ritual 
and  liturgy  together  in  the  entire  Psalter.  It  is  a 
thank-offering  hymn,  and  a  great  processional,  as  are 
many  of  the  Babylonian  liturgies,  and  as  in  those  pro- 
cessional liturgies  we  are  able  to  follow  the  ritual  by  the 
allusions,  so  are  we  also  in  this  118th  Psalm.  Begin- 
ning outside  the  temple,  we  can  see  how  the  procession 
proceeds  from  place  to  place  and  court  to  court,  per- 
forming certain  ritual  acts,  until  finally  they  come  to 
the  high  altar  for  the  great  sacrifice.  The  twenty- 
seventh  verse  reads:  "The  Lord  is  God  and  He  hath 
given  us  light,"  which  marks  the  kindling  of  the  sacri- 
ficial fire.  Then  we  have  a  rubric:  "Bind  the  sacrifice 
with  cords,  even  to  the  horns  of  the  altar"  (which  is 
now  recited  or  sung  by  us,  as  the  case  may  be,  as 
though  it  were  a  constituent  part  of  the  Psalm).  Then 
a  thank  cry:  "Thou  art  my  God  and  I  will  thank  thee; 
Thou  art  my  God  and  I  will  exalt  thee,"  followed  by 


146  Bible  and  Spade 

the  old  ritual  cry,  to  be  used  when  the  thank-offering 
victim  was  offered,  which  had  come  down  from  time 
immemorial:  "Oh,  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  for  He  is 
good,  for  His  loving  kindness  is  forever." 

Time  would  not  suffice  to  indicate  all  the  points  of 
resemblance  between  the  Babylonian  and  Hebrew 
liturgies,  such  as  the  designation  of  God  as  Shepherd, 
Bull,  Hero,  and  the  like.  More  striking,  perhaps,  are 
certain  of  the  spiritual  resemblances  such  as  are  sug- 
gested in  the  phrase:  "From  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the 
setting  of  the  sun,"  or  the  use  of  word,  or  breath  or 
wind,  as  the  agent  of  action  by  God.  But  I  do  not 
want  to  burden  you  with  too  many  details.  I  have 
already  indicated  how  in  the  case  of  the  great  sacrificial 
processionals  of  the  high  feast-days  comparison  of 
the  Babylonian  liturgies  has  enabled  us  to  identify 
the  action  and  the  accompanying  ritual  of  the  Hebrew, 
and  the  reverse  is  also  the  case,  comparison  with  the 
Hebrew  helps  to  determine  the  meaning  and  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Babylonian  hymns.  This  is  true  also  of 
the  penitentials.  The  6th  Psalm  of  our  Psalter  is 
the  first  of  the  Hebrew  penitentials.  It  is  almost 
identical  in  its  method  with  the  Babylonian  peniten- 
tials, and  indeed  it  was  the  ritual  analysis  of  a  Baby- 
lonian penitential  by  Jastrow  in  his  Religion  of  Baby- 
Ionia  and  Assyria  that  first  gave  me  the  clue  to  the 
Hebrew  use.  In  both  rituals  the  penitent  and  the 
priest  alternate  in  their  address,  the  penitent,  as 
taught,  setting  forth  his  need,  and  the  priest,  as  ritual 
expert,  offering  the  correct  prayers.  The  penitent 
comes  before  God,  led  by  the  priest,  who  expounds  to 


Hebrew  Psalmody  147 

God  why  the  penitent's  confession  and  sacrifice  should 
be  accepted.  In  the  Hebrew  this  goes  on  for  seven 
verses,  and  you  can  determine  pretty  well  the  priest's 
part  and  the  suppliant's  part  in  it.  Then  comes  the 
offering  of  the  sacrifice,  the  acceptance  of  the  same  and 
the  announcement  of  forgiveness.  This  is  followed  by 
a  burst  of  praise  and  exultation,  and  that  by  the  curse 
on  the  foes  through  whose  wicked  machinations  ca- 
lamity had  been  brought  on  the  suppliant.  In  some 
of  these  rituals  the  parts,  or  at  least  the  complaint, 
confession,  and  supplication,  are  repeated  several  times 
over  in  slightly  variant  form. 

In  the  7th  Psalm,  as  the  heading  tells  us,  we  have 
the  liturgy  to  accompany  the  ritual  for  the  unwitting 
sin  (Lev.  4),  that  is,  a  penitential  to  be  used  where  a 
man  is  stricken  or  afflicted  in  some  way  by  sickness, 
or  calamity  of  such  sort  as  is  evidence  of  the  wrath  of 
God,  but  cannot  put  his  finger  on  anything  which  he 
has  committed  which  could  have  caused  such  punish- 
ment. In  both  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  we  have 
liturgies  for  use  to  appease  God  in  such  case.  Here 
also  the  man  must  make  confession  of  sinfulness  and 
offer  an  atonement,  even  though  proclaiming  that  he 
knows  not  in  what  he  has  transgressed. 

One  more  point  of  resemblance  has  recently  come  to 
my  attention  through  the  publication  by  Professor 
Barton  of  a  number  of  Sumerian  liturgies  discovered 
at  Nippur.  The  old  Sumerian  kings  of  Babylonia 
were  deified.  We  have  several  hymns  from  the  city 
of  Ur,  liturgies  for  the  sacrifice  offered  to  the  deified 
king  at  his  birthday,  his  accession  day,  or  some  such 


148  Bible  and  Spade 

occasion.  Those  hymns  set  forth  incidentally  the 
Sumerian  idea  of  the  obligations  and  duties  of  the 
king,  and  they  are  most  strikingly  like  two  Psalms  of 
the  Hebrew  Psalter,  the  72d  and  the  2d.  These  two 
Psalms  were  incorporated  in  the  Psalter  when  the  old 
Davidic  hymn-book,  3-41,  and  the  new  Davidic  col- 
lection of  penitentials,  51-71,  were  joined  together  to 
constitute  one  great  David  psalm-book.  Psalm  2  was 
prefixed  as  the  introduction,  Psalm  72  added  as  the 
conclusion  of  the  new  Davidic  Psalter,  the  prayers  of 
David  Son  of  Jesse,  thus  formed.  Both  are  what  we 
call  Messianic.  The  first  of  them  almost  deifies  the 
ideal  king  there  described.  He  is  the  great  victor,  he 
is  the  son  of  God,  he  is  half,  if  not  altogether,  divine. 
The  second  describes  the  obligations  and  duties  of  the 
ideal  king,  how  he  is  to  bring  prosperity  to  his  land, 
and  how  he  is  to  care  for  the  poor  and  needy.  We 
have  both  these  things  in  those  old  liturgies  to  the 
kings  of  Ur. 

I  have  spoken  already  of  the  way  in  which  the  Baby- 
lonians loved  to  preserve  the  ancient  things,  the  an- 
cient forms,  which  were  kept  through  almost  3,000 
years,  the  old  names  and  old  ritual  expressions.  You 
will  find  the  same  thing  in  the  Hebrew.  It  is  in  the 
Psalms  that  you  get  the  old  names  of  the  Almighty, 
and  even  in  the  very  latest  liturgies  you  find  God 
addressed  by  his  ancient  and  for  all  other  purposes 
superseded  name,  Yahu. 

I  would  not  have  you  think  that  the  Hebrew  has 
simply  borrowed  in  all  this  from  the  Sumerian,  nor 
would  I  have  you  think  Sumerian  psalmody  is  on  a 
plane  with  the  Hebrew.    As  I  said  with  regard  to 


Hebrew  Psalmody  149 

Hebrew  cosmogony,  and  Hebrew  folk-lore,  the  spiritual 
differences  are  vastly  greater  than  the  outward  resem- 
blances. You  have,  it  is  true,  Egyptian  and  Baby- 
lonian hymns  of  spiritual  elevation  and  great  beauty, 
in  the  former  case  referable  to  Ikhnaton,  the  reformer 
king,  and  monotheistic  Sun-worshipper.  Indeed  you 
will  find  that  heathen  hymns  of  high  spirituality  are 
always  addressed  to  the  Sun-god.  The  worship  of  the 
Sun-god,  for  some  reason,  seems  to  have  been  the  purest 
and  the  most  exalted  in  ancient  religions.  But  such 
hymns  are  very  few  and  far  between.  The  ordinary 
Babylonian  hymns  repeat  over  and  over  again  the 
names  and  epithets  of  indefinite  gods  and  goddesses. 
Unless  you  are  looking  for  some  little  suggestions 
about  ritual  and  worship,  you  will  probably  be  bored 
or  even  repelled  by  most  of  them.  You  would  say  to 
yourself,  "How  foolish  and  how  degrading";  but  still 
more  will  you  say  this  when  you  take  the  liturgies 
designed  for  the  obscene  sex  cult  of  some  of  the  great 
festivals,  so  gross,  so  disgusting  their  utterances  would 
seem  to  you.  The  Hebrew  Psalms  are  by  general 
consent  the  greatest  hymn-book  ever  written.  Their 
wonderful  power  and  spirituality  have  affected  genera- 
tions with  greatly  different  religious  conceptions  and 
varied  standards  of  civilization,  and  still  they  continue 
to  be  a  power  to  uplift  and  to  comfort  men's  souls. 
This,  the  really  important  side  of  Hebrew  psalmody, 
I  have  not  brought  before  you  in  this  lecture.  I  have 
been  trying  to  show  you  rather  how  to  evaluate  the 
Hebrew  Psalter  in  relation  to  Hebrew  history  and  the 
growth  of  Hebrew  religion. 
And  now,  what  is  the  relation  of  Hebrew  psalmody 


150  Bible  and  Spade 

to  that  ancient  psalmody  of  the  Sumerian  Babylonians 
with  which  we  have  been  comparing  it?  The  resem- 
blances are  most  striking,  and  yet  it  is  not  a  case  of  a 
borrowing  of  the  Hebrew  from  the  Sumerian.  In  a 
former  lecture  I  spoke  to  you  about  the  inhabitants  of 
Babylonia.  The  oldest  civilization  was  that  of  the 
Sumerians,  occupying  southern  Babylonia.  They  were 
the  inventors  of  the  script  which  we  call  cuneiform,  in 
which  all  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  inscriptions  are 
written.  As  I  have  pointed  out,  their  name  for  temple 
was  carried  over  into  the  Babylonian  Semitic  tongue, 
and  appears  as  the  name  for*  temple,  not  only  in  Baby- 
lonia, but  as  far  westward  as  Palestine.  We  have  seen 
that  their  language  remained  the  sacred  church  lan- 
guage in  Babylonia  and  Assyria  down  almost,  if  not 
quite,  to  the  beginning  of  our  era;  that  their  old  psalms 
were  sung  in  the  temples  and  at  the  sacrifices  in  the 
old  Sumerian  tongue,  which  had  long  become  not 
understandable  by  the  people.  The  same  is  true  of 
magic.  The  names  of  demons,  and  technical  terms 
which  we  find  in  sorceries  and  incantations,  go  back 
to  the  Sumerian,  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  word  tem- 
ple. So  we  find,  both  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  and  in  later 
Jewish  incantations,  names  and  terms  of  Sumerian 
magic. 

Sometime  about,  or  a  little  before  3000  B.  C,  we  find 
Semitic  peoples  pushing  down  into  Babylonia  and  by 
the  end  of  the  next  millennium,  somewhat  before  2000 
B.  C,  we  find  that  they  have  become  the  dominating 
people.  The  civilization  which  we  call  Babylonian, 
and  the  people  which  we  call  Babylonian,  and  the 


Hebrew  Psalmody  151 

religion  which  we  call  Babylonian,  are  a  combination 
of  the  Semitic  and  the  Sumerian,  just  as  in  Egypt  we 
observed  that  the  Egyptians  and  the  Egyptian  civi- 
lization are  a  compound.  This  civilization  affected 
the  whole  west,  because  the  west  was  Semitic.  Its 
gods,  its  folk-lore,  its  legends,  its  myths  were  closely 
related  to  those  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia.  Therefore 
the  west  land  was  peculiarly  susceptible  to  influences 
from  Babylonia.  It  both  gave  and  took,  until  the 
same  civilization  and  the  same  cult,  with  a  difference 
of  thickness,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  varying  shades 
of  local  color,  were  stretched  over  the  whole  region  from 
the  Persian  Mountains  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea. 
That  is  the  reason  why  we  find  such  striking  resem- 
blances between  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  cosmogony, 
and  that  is  the  reason  also  why  we  find  the  same  prac- 
tices and  methods  of  psalmody,  even  down  to  pecu- 
liarities of  ritual  expression,  in  Babylonia  and  in  Israel. 
When  the  Israelites  entered  Canaan  some  of  these 
things  must  have  been  already  familiar  to  them,  part  of 
their  use,  part  of  their  cult,  part  of  their  civilization. 
Others  they  may  have  adopted  from  the  Canaanites,  for 
it  is  probable  that  the  settled  inhabitants  would  have 
customs  and  legends  more  closely  akin  to  those  of  Baby- 
lonia than  would  the  less  cultivated  nomadic,  wander- 
ing Semites.  When  David  set  up  the  cult  of  the  Ark, 
the  imageless  worship  of  God,  represented  only  by  the 
box  containing  the  two  tablets  of  stone,  with  the  five 
words  or  commands,  at  Jerusalem,  there  must  have 
been  in  existence  in  Israel  liturgies  and  ritual  forms — 
and  among  them  some  which  had  been  handed  down 


152  Bible  and  Spade 

from  the  desert  days,  in  connection  with  the  Ark. 
Indeed  we  have  a  record  of  two  such  in  the  book  of 
Numbers.  But,  with  the  new  cult  which  resulted  from 
the  establishment  of  the  Ark  at  his  capital  as  the  great 
centre  of  religious  life,  David  must  have,  of  necessity, 
appointed  priests  and  singers,  and  organized  and  de- 
veloped a  further  especial  ritual  for  this  cult.  At 
least,  such  a  development  began  with  him.  With  the 
building  of  the  temple  by  Solomon  the  ritual  assumed, 
of  course,  a  more  elaborate  form,  but  so  far,  at  least,  as 
the  songs  were  concerned,  people  always  looked  back 
to  David  as  the  originator  of  the  Jerusalem  ritual. 
Hence  the  title  "of  David"  of  psalms  of  the  Jerusalem 
temple;  although  I  think  we  may  safely  trust  tradition 
that  David  was  also  himself  a  singer  of  songs  and  litur- 
gies. What  I  mean  to  suggest  to  you  is  that  so  far  from 
our  Psalms  not  being  ancient,  we  must  even  carry  them 
back  in  rudiment  before  the  time  of  David.  He  took 
what  he  found  and  improved  upon  it,  developed  it, 
and  we  can  trace  certain  phrases  and  forms  in  those 
liturgies  back  to  a  time  before  David.  When  you  see 
as  the  heading  of  a  Psalm  in  the  Psalter  "of  David," 
you  may  recognize  this  as  the  hall-mark  of  the  Jerusa- 
lem temple.  It  means  simply  a  Psalm  of  the  Jeru- 
salem hymnal,  which  hymnal  went  back  in  its  origin  to 
David,  and,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  in  some 
things  to  a  time  before  David.  And  this  antiquity  of 
the  Psalms  was  what  we  might  have  expected  if  we  had 
not  been  obsessed  with  false  notions;  for  the  oldest 
part  of  religion  which  has  come  down  to  us  is  the  rites 
and  the  liturgies  connected  with  those  rites. 


Hebrew  Psalmody  153 

And  now  I  want  to  confirm  what  I  have  derived 
from  the  old  inscriptions  from  Babylonia,  part  of 
which  I  dug  out  myself  in  that  most  ancient  and  most 
honored  of  the  temples  of  the  olden  time,  the  temple  of 
Enlil  at  Nippur,  by  material  of  another  sort,  for  the 
greater  part  not  literary  material  produced  by  the 
spade,  but  material  produced  by  travel,  and  investiga- 
tion of  conditions  on  the  spot.  The  Psalms  are  full  of 
local  color,  of  local  references,  which  have  been  over- 
looked, because,  I  think,  travellers  have  not  always 
travelled  with  the  Psalms  in  mind.  My  attention  was 
first  called  to  these  local  notes  in  the  Psalms  when  I 
was  travelling  back  and  forth  along  the  river  Eu- 
phrates. There  come  up  before  my  mind,  when  I  think 
of  those  days,  the  cliffs  that  fence  in  the  narrow  valley, 
often  a  couple  of  hundred  feet  in  height,  generally 
glaring  white,  but  sometimes  touched  with  a  greenish 
hue  or  even  painted  red  or  yellow.  Between  these  and 
the  brown,  swirling  river  are  fields  of  grain  or  great 
meadows  of  wild  licorice,  and  close  to  the  waters  edge 
grows  the  flowering  tamerisk,  ever  and  anon  springing 
up  in  extensive  jungles,  the  home  of  countless  wild 
pigs,  which  no  pious  man  may  defile  himself  by  eating. 
These  jungles  are  likewise  the  lair  of  the  dreaded  lion, 
and  many  a  night  we  heaped  brush  on  the  fire  and  kept 
strict  guard  to  protect  us  from  the  king  of  beasts.  As 
for  the  jackals,  they  were  absolutely  countless,  and 
every  night  and  all  night  long  they  wailed  by  our 
camps  with  that  weird  half-human  cry  that  makes  you 
think  of  goblin  babies.  In  the  river  and  along  its  shores 
the  great  monitor  lizards,  so  often  mistaken  for  croco- 


154  Bible  and  Spade 

diles,  showed  themselves,  together  with  enormous 
turtles  and  huge  antique  fish,  unknown  to  our  waters. 
With  what  apprehension  we  used  to  see  the  black  goat 
or  camel  hair  tents  of  the  Bedouin  Arabs  pitched  on  the 
plateau  above  the  river  and  stretching,  it  might  be, 
several  miles.  It  always  was  a  question  whether  we 
should  come  out  without  paying  blackmail.  We  were 
equally  afraid  of  the  Shammar  Arabs  of  the  north,  the 
Meshech  of  Hebrew  times,  and  the  Anazeh  Arabs  of 
the  southern  shore,  the  Kedar  of  Hebrew  thought.  I 
can  see  now  how  the  links  of  the  caravan  would  close 
up  and  the  stragglers  hurry  forward,  and  no  one  felt 
secure  until  the  Arab  camp  had  been  left  far  behind. 
How  well  I  remember  being  ambushed  beyond  one  of 
these  camps.  "When  I  spoke  peace,  they  were  for 
war."  And  then  the  march — the  bitter  cold  of  the 
nights,  for  we  and  all  caravans  must  start  before  dawn; 
and  the  burning  heat  of  the  day  before  we  reached  our 
halting  place.  As  soon  as  the  sun  was  up  the  heat 
began;  as  soon  as  the  moon  arose  it  was  bitter  cold. 
And  then  the  dreariness  of  the  absolutely  level  plain. 
What  a  joy  it  was  to  see  the  hills  rising  before  us.  In 
marching  from  Babylonia  toward  the  west  the  sight 
of  the  hills  meant  home,  safety,  comfort,  things  to 
which  we  were  used.  But  all  that  is  pictured  in  the 
pilgrim  Psalms  of  the  Hebrews,  120-134.  Each  is 
headed,  you  remember,  "Song  of  degrees," — at  least 
that  is  the  heading  in  the  King  James  Version, — which 
means  song  of  going  up,  pilgrim  song. 

Listen  and  see  how  the  first  of  those  Psalms  tells  of 
conditions  such  as  I  have  described : 


Hebrew  Psalmody  155 

"Lord,  deliver  me  from  the  lying  lip,  from  the  deceitfuj  tongue. 

Arrows  of  the  mighty  sharpened, 

With  coals  of  broom; 

Woe  is  me  that  I  sojourned  in  Meshech, 

Abode  among  the  tents  of  Kedar. 

Long  time  I  dwelt  with  the  haters  of  peace; 

When  I  would  speak  peace,  they  were  for  battle." 

And  it  always  was  a  long  time.  I  could  travel  twice 
as  fast  or  three  times  as  fast  as  those  old  pilgrims  from 
Babylonia  to  the  feast  at  Jerusalem,  but  it  took  me  a 
month  or  more. 

Or  hear  this;  it  makes  me  think  of  our  guards  by 
night,  how  we  would  set  guards,  and  how  I  have  wak- 
ened and  found  every  guard  sound  asleep: 

"May  He  not  suffer  thy  foot  to  be  moved. 
May  he  not  slumber  that  keepeth  thee. 
Behold !  the  keeper  of  Israel  shall  neither  slumber  nor  sleep." 

Oh !  how  we  did  long  for  and  need  a  guard  like  that  1 

"The  Lord  is  thy  keeper, 
The  Lord  thy  shade  on  thy  right  hand; 
The  sun  shall  not  hurt  thee  by  day, 
Neither  the  moon  by  night"; 

when  we  were  scorched  by  day,  and  frozen  by  night. 
Again,  from  the  Psalms  this  cry: 

"I  lift  up  mine  eyes  to  the  hills. 
Whence  cometh  my  help  ? 
My  help  is  from  the  Lord, 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth." 

Those  Psalms  have  been  a  part  of  my  experience  ever 
since,  simply  because  I  traversed  time  and  again  the 


156  Bible  and  Spade 

same  route  that  the  pilgrims  of  the  Captivity  used  to 
traverse  going  up  to  the  feasts  at  Jerusalem,  saw  and 
felt  everything  the  same  as  they  did.  Naturally  my 
conclusion  was:  those  Psalms  were  written  by  and  for 
the  pilgrims  from  the  Captivity  to  Jerusalem  at  the 
great  feasts — the  Captivity,  you  will  remember,  was 
the  term  used  by  the  Jews,  not  only  for  those  who  were 
actually  captives  in  Babylonia  during  the  Exile,  but 
for  the  Jews  that  remained  in  Babylonia  after  the 
Exile  for  centuries — and  this  conclusion  I  arrived  at 
not  only  from  personal  observation  and  experience  of 
such  local  references,  but  also  from  a  study  of  the 
language  of  those  Psalms  in  connection  with  my  study 
of  the  Babylonian  language.  There  are  certain  pe- 
culiarities in  those  Psalms  which  can  be  explained  only 
from  Babylonian.  Not  merely  are  there  certain  uses 
of  prepositions  and  the  like,  which  contravene  the  reg- 
ular use  of  Hebrew  grammar  and  syntax,  but  there 
are  actually  two  or  three  passages  which  cannot  be 
translated  from  Hebrew,  at  least  intelligibly,  but  which 
instantly  become  intelligible  when  you  read  them  over 
into  Babylonian. 

The  next  thing  I  noticed  in  the  way  of  local  reference 
was  in  the  89th  Psalm.  In  the  twelfth  verse  of  that 
Psalm  occur  these  words: 

"North  and  south  Thou  has  created  them — 
Tabor  and  Hermon  rejoice  in  Thy  name." 

Clearly  that  could  have  been  written  only  by  a  man 
who  had  as  landmarks  of  north  and  south  the  great 
Mount  Hermon,  and  the  conspicuous,  but  not  so  lofty 


Hebrew  Psalmody  157 

Tabor.  Where  was  that?  Up  by  the  sources  of  the 
Jordan,  the  site  of  the  ancient  temple  of  Dan.  Turn- 
ing to  the  42d  Psalm,  I  found  that  all  commentators 
were  agreed  that  this  must  have  been  written  by  some 
one  at  the  source  of  the  Jordan.  They  were  inclined 
to  fancy  that  it  was  a  Levite  from  Jerusalem,  wander- 
ing through  that  region,  or  a  captive  with  Nebuchad- 
rezzar's army.    Surely  a  very  strange  proposition ! 

These  Psalms  are  called  Psalms  of  the  Sons  of 
Korah.  Now  the  story  in  the  book  of  Judges  of  the 
establishment  of  Dan  in  that  locality  tells  how  the 
children  of  Dan,  moving  from  their  original  site  at 
the  edge  of  the  Philistine  plain,  as  one  goes  down  from 
Jerusalem  to  Joppa,  carried  off  from  the  house  of  an 
Ephraimite  his  Levitical  priest,  his  images  and  all  his 
paraphernalia  of  worship,  and  took  them  with  them  to 
Dan,  and  the  story  says  that  this  priest  was  a  grandson 
of  Moses,  and  therefore,  according  to  the  Levitical 
genealogies,  a  son  of  Korah.  As  one  reads  further  in 
the  collections  of  Psalms  of  the  Sons  of  Korah,  one 
observes,  if  one  is  familiar  with  the  country,  further 
local  references,  which  apply  only  to  that  region.  So 
Psalm  46  becomes  really  intelligible  only  as  one  sees  in 
it  a  reflection  of  the  physical  conditions  of  that  coun- 
try. Finally  I  said  to  myself:  "Why,  these  must 
have  been  originally  a  part  of  the  hymnal  of  the  tem- 
ple of  Dan";  a  conclusion  which  is  supported  further 
by  the  references  in  those  Psalms  to  Jacob  and  Israel, 
not  Judah,  and  by  the  use  in  them  of  the  regular  Israel- 
ite or  Samaritan  title  for  God,  quite  different  from  the 
Judean  title. 


158  Bible  and  Spade 

The  more  I  read  the  Psalms,  the  more  I  felt  that, 
having  made  two  visits  to  Palestine,  I  must  make  still 
a  third  for  the  special  purpose  of  camping,  as  it  were, 
on  the  sacred  sites  of  Israel,  and  seeing  what  the  Psalms 
meant  to  me  there.  Permit  me  to  say  that  I  did  not 
start  on  this  investigation  with  theories  ready  made. 
In  my  earlier  writings  I  accepted  the  theories  in  vogue 
with  regard  to  the  Psalms.  It  was  my  investigations 
which  upset  the  theories  I  had  accepted  from  others, 
and  drove  me  to  an  absolutely  different  view,  a  view 
which  ultimately  came  into  complete  harmony  with 
the  results  obtained  from  my  study  of  the  Babylonian 
rituals. 

Jerusalem  was  the  great  impregnable  fortress  of  Ca- 
naan in  the  historic  period.  You  will  remember  how, 
when  David  desired  to  annex  the  Jebusite  enclave  of 
Jerusalem,  which  separated  Judah  from  all  the  rest 
of  Israel,  the  Jebusites  laughed  at  him.  They  said: 
"Our  town  is  so  strong  that  the  blind  and  lame  can 
defend  it."  It  was  situated  on  a  hump  or  swelling  of 
a  narrow  ridge  of  rock.  On  the  east  and  on  the  west 
this  descended  into  deep  ravines.  Southward  it  fell 
away  more  gradually,  but  in  terrace-like  ramparts  easy 
to  defend.  Northward,  below  the  hump  or  swelling, 
was  a  relatively  level  narrow  ridge,  and  then  rose  an- 
other swelling  and  another.  On  all  sides  were  points 
from  which  you  could  overlook  the  Jebusite  fortress, 
but  no  point  from  which  with  "the  weapons  of  those 
days  you  could  dominate  it.  The  only  point  relatively 
difficult  of  defense  was  the  north  side.  That  alone  had 
to  be  walled  with  a  very  strong  high  wall.    Further- 


Hebrew  Psalmody  159 

more,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  the  east  was  an  Inter- 
mittent spring,  the  only  living  water  about  Jerusalem. 
The  strength  of  one  of  those  old  fortresses  depended 
on  its  abundant  supply  of  water.  If  it  had  water 
and  there  was  no  other  water  about,  any  besieger  would 
be  defeated  by  nature.  If  he  could  not  take  the  city 
by  storm,  and  Zion  could  easily  be  made  so  strong 
that  that  was  impossible,  he  would  have  to  withdraw, 
for  they  had  no  methods  of  siege  and  of  maintaining 
an  army  in  those  days  and  in  those  places  such  as  we 
have  now.  They  only  made  war  during  the  periods 
when  it  was  not  raining.  Now  this  spring  at  the  foot 
of  the  Jebusite  hill,  Zion,  had  been  walled  in  on  the 
outside,  and  a  tunnel  cut  into  the  rock  long  before  the 
time  of  David,  and  a  shaft  brought  up  to  the  surface 
within  the  wall,  so  that,  while  no  one  could  get  at  the 
fountain  from  without,  the  people  in  the  city  could 
always  have  an  abundant  supply  of  water.  Hence  the 
scoff  at  David.  The  book  of  Samuel  tells  how  he  of- 
fered a  reward,  as  kings  did  in  those  days,  of  a  posi- 
tion in  the  kingdom  almost  equal  to  his  own  to  the 
man  who  would  take  that  city  for  him;  how  Joab  found 
where  the  spring  was;  how  he  contrived  to  get  in;  how 
he  climbed  up  that  "gutter,"  as  it  is  called  in  our 
translations,  and  took  the  impregnable  city. 

David  and  Solomon  extended  the  old  Jebusite  city 
northward  to  the  next  swelling  or  Zion,  and  on  that 
Solomon  built  his  temple.  Underneath  this  were  exca- 
vated a  vast  number  of  cisterns  of  enormous  size,  which 
still  contain  water,  and  at  some  period  also,  we  do 
not  know  when,  water  was  brought  in  from  distant 


160  Bible  and  Spade 

sources  by  underground  pipings.  By  and  by  the  city 
grew  over  onto  the  western  hill  of  Jerusalem,  and  then, 
apparently  in  Hezekiah's  time,  a  tunnel  was  cut  right 
through  that  eastern  hill,  where  David's  city  was,  to 
bring  the  water  of  the  Virgin's  well  into  the  valley 
between  the  two  hills.  But  always  it  was  Zion,  either 
the  original  Zion  of  David's  fortress  or  the  new  Zion 
of  the  temple,  that  was  the  central  point  of  strength 
of  the  city.  The  other  or  western  hill  could  not  be 
defended  in  the  same  way.1 

I  spoke  in  a  former  lecture  of  the  way  in  which  Isaiah 
proclaimed  the  invincibility  of  the  God  of  Zion.  In 
the  account  of  the  Assyrian  invasion  you  see  that  Sen- 
nacherib could  not  take  the  city  by  storm;  and  the 
army  that  he  sent  against  it  had  to  withdraw.  That 
was  a  proof  of  the  mighty  strength  of  Jerusalem;  and 
when  Sennacherib's  army  was  driven  out  of  the  coun- 
try by  plague,  the  final  proof  was  given  of  the  in- 
vincibility of  the  God  of  Zion.  Now,  the  Psalms  of 
the  first  book  of  the  Psalter,  which  was  the  first  Je- 
rusalem hymnal,  the  first  Davidic  hymnal,  are  full  of 
the  invincibility  of  this  Zion;  of  God,  the  Rock,  the 
Strength,  the  Tower,  the  Fortress,  the  Refuge;  of  the 
enemy  overrunning  the  land  only  to  be  compelled  to 
retire.  That  Psalter  is  vivid  with  this,  and  the  more 
familiar  I  became  with  underground  Jerusalem,  the 
more  the  city  of  the  old  days  was  brought  before  my 


1  We  gain  some  idea  of  the  strength  of  David's  city,  the  Acra 
of  the  Maccabean  time,  when  we  read  in  Maccabees  of  the  Syrian 
garrison  which  maintained  itself  there  for  twenty  years  after  the 
rest  of  Jerusalem  had  been  taken  by  the  Jews. 


Hebrew  Psalmody  161 

eyes  by  study  of  the  excavations,  the  rock  contours  and 
the  like,  the  more  I  realized  the  local  color  of  those 
Psalms.  And  not  only  I.  When  I  presented  this  to 
archaeologists  who  had  an  even  greater  familiarity  than 
I  with  the  ancient  conditions,  who  had  succeeded  in 
restoring  and  upbuilding  in  mind  the  ancient  city, 
they  responded  at  once.    They  felt  the  local  color. 

Well,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  Psalms  3-41  are 
clearly  from  old  Jerusalem,  before  the  Exile.  The 
Psalms  of  Asaph,  namely  50  and  73-83,  and  the 
Psalms  which  we  sometimes  call  the  Prayers  of  David 
son  of  Jesse,  51-72,  have  also  local  color,  by  which  the 
former  can  be  located  at  Bethel,  and  the  latter  at 
Shechem.  Ultimately,  after  the  fall  of  Samaria  (721 
B.  C),  Psalms  of  the  temples  of  Israel;  Shechem, 
Dan,  and  Bethel  were  brought  to  Jerusalem  and  used 
in  the  temple  there.  Some  of  these  were  taken  over 
almost  in  the  form  in  which  they  had  existed  in  the 
shrines  of  Israel;  others  were  greatly  changed,  and  I 
shall  conclude  this  lecture  by  giving  you  one  specimen 
of  such  a  change.1 

The  collection  which  we  know  as  the  Psalms  of  the 
Sons  of  Korah  consists  of  Psalms  42-49.  Those  were 
taken  over  almost  unchanged;  but  there  is  a  supple- 
mentary collection  of  Korah  Psalms,  84-89,  which  had 
a  very  different  history.  In  these  for  the  old  divine 
name  of  Israel,  Elohim,  was  substituted  the  divine 
name   of   Judah,    Yahaweh.    In    some    cases   whole 

1  For  detailed  proof  of  much  above  stated  about  the  Psalms, 
too  lengthy  and  too  technical  for  presentation  here,  I  must  refer 
the  reader  to  my  book  The  Psalms  as  Liturgies, 


162  Bible  and  Spade 

stanzas  were  remodelled  to  adapt  them  for  some  new 
ritual  use  in  Jerusalem.  A  good  example  of  all  this  we 
find  in  the  first  Psalm  of  this  collection,  84.  Originally 
this  was  a  companion  piece  to  42-43.  Here,  as  there, 
at  the  close  of  each  of  the  three  stanzas  there  was 
a  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice  at  the  close  of  the  last  stanza 
being  at  the  high  altar.  Accordingly  the  first  and  sec- 
ond stanzas  each  have  at  the  end  a  selah,  an  indication 
of  a  great  outburst  of  trumpet-blowing  and  the  like  at 
the  sacrificial  moment,  and  the  first  and  third  end  with 
a  chorus.  The  second  stanza  as  we  now  have  it  in  our 
English  translation  (and  the  same  is  partly  true  of  the 
Hebrew)  is  quite  unintelligible.  The  translators  have 
taken  very  great  liberties  with  the  text,  giving  words 
meanings  which  they  nowhere  possess.  Nevertheless, 
they  have  not  been  able  to  make  it  intelligible,  as  all 
commentators  agree.  When  I  was  struggling  with 
this  stanza  in  my  room  in  a  hotel  in  Jerusalem,  as  I 
had  struggled  with  it  many  times  before,  and  was  ut- 
terly in  despair,  it  occurred  to  me  to  translate  it  liter- 
ally. Now,  if  you  will  look  at  verses  five  and  follow- 
ing in  the  English  translation,  you  will  see  what  it 
was  that  I  encountered.  The  second  half  of  the  fifth 
verse  (American  Revised)  reads:  "In  whose  heart  are 
the  highways  to  Sion"  "to  Sion"  being  in  italics  to 
show  that  it  is  not  in  the  text.  The  literal  meaning 
of  this  verse  is  "Between  them  the  bridge,"  or  cause- 
way. The  next  verse  reads  in  the  American  Revision : 
"Passing  through  the  valley  of  weeping  they  make  it 
the  place  of  springs."  Not  so  far  wrong.  Literally  it 
is,  however:  "In  the  valley  of  weeping  the  fountain  that 


Hebrew  Psalmody  163 

was  made."  The  second  half  of  that  verse  is  absolutely 
hopeless  in  the  English:  "Yea,  the  early  rain  covereth 
it  with  blessings."  There  is  no  "Yea,"  there  is  no 
word  which  by  any  chance  can  mean  "early  rain." 
There  is  no  word  that  means  "covereth."  It  would 
be  possible  to  make  out  of  the  last  word  "blessings." 
The  actual  reading  is  this:  "The  pool  the  leader  encir- 
cleth."  The  first  part  of  the  seventh  verse,  "They  go 
from  strength  to  strength,"  is  literally,  "From  rampart 
to  rampart  they  go";  and  the  latter  part,  which  is 
translated,  "  Every  one  of  them  appeareth  before  God 
in  Zion,"  actually  means,  "The  God  of  Gods  is  seen  in 
Zion." 

Now,  having  translated  this  literally  there  in  Jeru- 
salem, it  dawned  on  me  for  the  first  time  what  it  was 
that  I  had  actually  before  my  eyes,  rubrics  directing 
where  the  sacrificial  procession  should  go,  and,  as  I 
sat,  I  saw  the  whole  thing  before  me  from  the  first 
stanza  on.  I  could  locate  just  the  spot  on  the  higher 
western  hill,  looking  down  into  the  courts  of  the  tem- 
ple, across  the  valley  of  the  Tyropoeon,  indicated  in 
stanza  1,  "How  lovely  are  Thy  courts,"  where  the 
sparrow  findeth  a  home,  and  the  swallow  maketh  a 
nest.  Down  below  and  across  the  valley  you  still  see 
the  countless  swallows  flying,  and  the  sparrows  finding 
a  home,  just  as  in  that  day.  So  I  knew  where  the 
service  began,  where  the  first  sacrifice  was  offered, 
looking  down  to  the  altar  of  God  and  his  sanctuary  in 
the  courts  spread  out  below.  From  the  western  hill 
to  the  eastern  hill  of  Zion  ran  at  this  point  a  causeway 
or  bridge,  and  one  can  still  see  the  spring  of  one  of  the 


164  Bible  and  Spade 

arches  of  the  ancient  bridge  of  Herod's  time.  The 
processional  started,  all  clapping  their  hands  and 
stamping  their  staves,  precisely  as  processionals  do  to- 
day in  Jerusalem,  to  get  the  rhythm,  singing,  "Happy 
he  whose  strength  is  in  Thee."  One  such  verse  will 
suffice  for  quite  a  long  march.  From  time  to  time 
probably  voluntaries  were  added,  but  this  was  the 
verse  officially  provided  for  this  procession.  The 
rubric  directed  the  procession  to  "Cross  the  cause- 
way between  the  two  hills.' '  When  they  had  done  so, 
they  came  to  the  road  leading  down  to  the  right  by 
the  side  of  David's  city  into  the  valley  of  weeping, 
the  ancient  place  of  burial,  just  where  the  rubric 
directs  them  to  go.  In  Hezekiah's  time,  as  already 
stated,  a  tunnel  was  carried  under  the  hill  on  which 
David's  city  stood,  the  hill  of  Ophel,  to  bring  water 
from  the  Virgin  fountain  on  the  other  side  into  the 
interior  of  the  city,  which  had  now  grown  across  the 
valley  of  the  Tyropceon  and  up  onto  the  western  hill. 
The  point  at  which  the  water  pours  out  of  that  tunnel 
is  called  to-day  "fountain,"  a  word  regularly  applied 
only  to  a  spring  springing  up  out  of  the  ground.  Here 
the  water  seems  to  spring  out  of  the  ground,  and  so 
this  also  is  called  "fountain,"  albeit  a  fountain  made 
by  man,  not  by  God.  The  road  goes  past  this  foun- 
tain, and  so  the  rubric  says:  "By  the  fountain  which 
was  made." 

Below  that  is  the  pool  of  Siloam,so  called  in  antiquity 
and  so  called  to-day,  and  for  both  fountain  and  pool 
the  names  actually  in  use  to-day  among  the  Arabic- 
speaking  population  of  Jerusalem  are  identical  in  form 


Hebrew  Psalmody  165 

with  those  used  by  the  Hebrews  in  antiquity.  The 
names  have  been  taken  over  just  as  they  stood.  This 
pool  of  Siloam  does  not  receive  water  from  the  tunnel 
under  the  rock.  The  surplusage  of  that  water  is  car- 
ried out  by  a  rock-cut  passage  to  the  east  of  the  pool. 
The  pool  of  Siloam  received  the  surface  water  from  the 
valley.  It  was  quite  large,  filling  most  of  the  bed  of  the 
valley,  and  to  pass  around  it  you  must  make  a  circuit 
to  the  right.  One  would  have  done  exactly  the  same 
thing  in  the  olden  time,  because  there  is  no  other  possi- 
bility; so  here  we  have  the  rubric,  "The  leader  (of  the 
procession)  encircles  the  pool." 

That  brought  the  procession  to  the  foot  of  the 
scarped  rock  at  the  southern  extremity  of  the  hill  of 
Ophel,  up  which  goes  the  street  to  the  old  David's 
city,  facing  the  entrance.  The  hill  rises  from  scarp  to 
scarp,  and  you  can  still  see  the  remains  of  some  of  the 
fortifications  which  once  made  of  it  such  a  strong  fort- 
ress. Recent  excavations  have  made  evident  the  high- 
est scarp,  at  the  southern  end  of  the  citadel,  David's 
fortress,  immediately  above  the  Virgin's  spring.  Who- 
ever will  make  that  route  will  realize  the  meaning  of 
"from  rampart  to  rampart  they  go."  So  they  come 
to  the  southern  entrance  to  the  temple,  even  in  Herod's 
time  the  great  entrance  for  the  festival  processions. 
The  arrival  at  the  entrance  is  indicated  by  the  note: 
"The  God  of  Gods  is  seen  in  Zion,"  and  then  at  the 
temple  threshhold  the  choir  bursts  out  with  the  cry: 
"Lord,  God  of  Hosts,  hear  my  prayer,  hearken,  God  of 
Jacob,"  after  which  appears  the  selah,  indicating  the 
sacrificial   outbursts   with   which  this  stanza  closes. 


166  Bible  and  Spade 

The  chorus,  by  the  way,  still  shows  the  old  Danite 
origin  of  the  Psalm,  but  the  stanza  itself,  which  must 
once  have  been  fitted  for  a  processional  to  the  Dan 
temple,  has  been  eliminated,  and  these  rubrics  put  in  its 
place  telling  of  the  route  of  the  processional,  and  con- 
taining what  was  needed  for  a  marching  song. 

Now  the  following  concluding  stanza  also  becomes 
quite  intelligible.  It  begins  with  a  cry  to  God  to  be- 
hold the  face  of  the  anointed  king,  for  this  was  a 
liturgy  of  the  royal  sacrifice,  and  then,  as  the  worship- 
pers throw  themselves  on  their  faces  on  the  ground  at 
the  threshhold  of  the  temple  courts,  the  chorus  of 
Levites  sings: 

"For  better  a  day  in  thy  courts  than  an  army. 
I  had  rather  be  a  threshold  in  God's  House 
Than  a  fortress  in  the  cities  of  the  godless." 

The  next  verse  indicates  in  a  somewhat  similar  way 
another  ritual  act  as  the  procession  advances  toward 
the  altar,  viz.,  the  purification,  which  takes  place  im- 
mediately before  the  sacrifice : 

"God  refuseth  no  good  to  those  who  walk  in  cleanness." 

Then  with  the  sacrifice  comes  the  final  chorus:     , 

"Lord  of  hosts,  happy  he  who  trusteth  in  Thee." 

I  was  a  bit  inclined  to  think  I  had  gone  mad;  that  I 
had  become  a  visionary  and  was  seeing  things  that  were 
unreal.  I  got  up  and  went  down  and  made  the  pro- 
cession. It  was  absolutely  convincing,  and  yet  why 
had  no  one  ever  seen  it?    How  was  it  possible  it  had 


Hebrew  Psalmody  167 

been  overlooked?  I  distrusted  my  conviction.  It 
chanced  that  a  distinguished  Jewish  scholar  came  to 
call  on  me.  I  began  to  read  him  the  Psalm,  telling  him 
what  I  thought  I  had  found.  He,  an  American  by- 
birth,  trained  in  a  German  university,  an  admirable 
scholar  of  Hebrew,  now  getting  actual  and  not  book 
impressions  of  Jerusalem,  quickly  saw  the  point,  so 
that  I  did  not  have  to  recite  the  whole.  Attention 
once  called  to  it,  it  was  so  clear  that  he  could  chant  it 
to  me  in  the  correct  form.  Before  his  visit  was  over, 
the  most  distinguished  Jerusalem  archaeologist  in  the 
world,  Father  Hugues  Vincent,  of  the  Dominican 
fathers,  came  in.  We  had  shared  finds  before  and  asked 
one  another's  counsel.  I  told  him  I  had  something  to 
lay  before  him,  took  him  into  my  room,  handed  him 
the  Hebrew  Bible  and  proceeded  to  give  him  my  trans- 
lation and  exposition.  It  was  not  all  needed.  It  was 
as  clear  to  him  as  it  had  before  been  to  my  Jewish 
friend,  and  first  of  all  to  me.  Afterward  I  took  many 
plainer  scholars,  but  intelligent  Bible  readers  over  this 
route,  making  the  processional  in  full  form.  I  believe 
that  every  one  who  tried  it  was  convinced,  and  when 
he  reads  that  Psalm  will  always  in  memory  make  that 
pilgrimage  and  see,  as  he  does  so,  the  old  temple  choir 
and  hear  the  old  temple  chant. 


V 

THE  EXPLORATION  OF  PALESTINE 

We  Americans  may  boast  with  some  pride  that  the 
scientific  exploration  of  Palestine  was  begun  by  us. 
Professor  Edward  Robinson  of  Union  Seminary,  New 
York,  the  leading  Hebrew  scholar  of  his  time  in  the 
United  States,  went  to  Palestine  in  1838,  with  a  mis- 
sionary of  the  American  Board,  Reverend  Eli  Smith, 
then  stationed  at  Beirout.  Missionaries  have  ever  been 
pioneers  in  exploration.  The  Bible  scholar  by  himself 
could  never  have  accomplished  such  great  results. 
Smith  had  the  language,  Smith  had  acquaintance 
with  the  natives  by  which  he  could  make  arrangements 
for  travel  and  abode.  Robinson  had  the  technical 
knowledge.  It  was  a  combination  of  the  two  that  pro- 
duced results.  Their  equipment  was  small — a  compass, 
a  telescope,  a  thermometer,  a  measuring  tape,  and, 
above  all,  a  Bible.  Eli  Smith  talked  with  the  na- 
tives. He  could  get  from  them  their  traditions  about 
places,  learn  the  names  which  they  gave  to  those 
places  and  pronounce  and  spell  them  properly.  Robin- 
son's trained  intellect  saw  behind  the  present  forms 
of  those  names  their  correspondence  with  the  old 
Hebrew  names.  His  scientific  and  thorough  acquain- 
tance with  his  Bible  helped  him  in  this,  and  helped  him 
also  in  the  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  such 
traditions  as  Smith  reported.    He  made  a  second  trip 

168 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  169 

in  1858  to  confirm  and  enlarge,  after  some  years  of 
quiet  study  at  home,  his  former  results,  the  material 
he  had  first  collected  and  which  he  had  already  in 
part  published.  The  result  was  his  three  large  volumes 
of  Bible  Researches  in  Palestinef  Mount  Sinai,  and 
Arabia  Petraa,  which  are  to  this  day  an  indispensable 
part  of  the  equipment  of  every  Palestinian  scholar. 

It  was  about  midway  between  Doctor  Robinson's 
first  and  second  visits  that  the  United  States  sent  out 
a  second  modest  little  expedition.  Lieutenent  W.  T. 
Lynch  of  the  United  States  Navy  was  detailed,  in 
1848,  to  explore  the  Dead  Sea,  and  was  given  as  com- 
panion a  geologist,  Doctor  Anderson.  It  was  a  very 
adventurous  trip  and  a  very  dangerous  one.  They 
got  two  little  metal  boats  across  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
floated  down  the  Jordan  in  those  and  in  them  navigated 
the  Dead  Sea,  the  shores  of  which  were  occupied  by 
as  thoroughgoing  a  set  of  rascals  and  cutthroats  as 
existed  in  the  world.  Lynch  was  the  only  Frank  for 
many  years  who  went  into  and  came  out  of  the  town 
of  Kerak,  the  ancient  Kir  Hareseth  of  Moab,  on  a  high 
mountain  southeast  of  the  Dead  Sea,  without  paying 
a  ransom.  Many  years  later,  in  1890,  I  attempted  to 
go  to  Kerak,  but  found  that  if  I  did  so  I  might  be  held 
prisoner  indefinitely,  or  until  some  one  ransomed  me. 
In  fact,  when  I  declined  to  go  under  such  circumstances, 
the  Arabs  made  an  attempt  to  kidnap  me  and  carry  me 
there  by  main  force.  Pardon  the  digression.  Lynch's 
method  of  avoiding  the  ransom  was  very  simple,  but 
there  were  not  many  men  who  would  have  had  the 
hardihood  and  the  nerve  to  plan  and  carry  it  through. 


170  Bible  and  Spade 

He  put  a  revolver  at  the  head  of  the  chief  of  the  town 
and  marched  him  out  in  front  of  him ! 

It  was  the  interest  aroused  by  this  work,  especially 
that  of  Robinson,  which  led  the  English  to  organize 
in  1865  a  Palestine  Exploration  Fund,  and  it  was  able 
to  engage  in  its  employ  several  men  who  won  great 
distinction  in  later  English  history,  for  English  sol- 
diers, perhaps  more  than  those  of  any  other  country, 
have  been  Bible  enthusiasts,  such  men  as  Gordon  and 
Kitchener.  Other  famous  names  on  the  list  of  the 
men  whom  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  employed 
are  Sir  Charles  Warren  and  Sir  Charles  Wilson.  When 
the  Fund  was  organized,  the  latter  of  these  had  just 
completed  a  survey  of  Jerusalem  as  part  of  a  plan  for 
bringing  water  into  the  city  as  a  gift  from  Baroness 
Burdett  Coutts.  Unfortunately,  the  jealous  Turkish 
Government  did  not  permit  this  to  be  done,  and  it  re- 
quired at  last  the  world  war  to  bring  water  from  Solo- 
mon^ pools  and  beyond  to  Jerusalem  by  underground 
conduits,  as  it  used  to  be  brought  in  the  time  of  Christ 
and  we  know  not  how  much  earlier.  Sir  Charles 
Warren  was  engaged  by  the  Palestine  Exploration 
Fund  to  make  excavations  following  up  Wilson's 
work.  In  those  days,  when  one  thought  of  Palestine, 
one  thought  of  Jerusalem.  That  was  the  goal  of  all 
efforts,  and,  unfortunately,  it  is  about  the  most  diffi- 
cult place  to  explore  in  all  the  world.  That  Sir  Charles 
Warren  was  able  to  make  some  investigations  of  the 
temple  hill  under  the  ground,  and  he  had  to  do  it  under- 
ground, was  due  to  the  fact  of  the  peculiar  relation  in 
which  at  that  time  England  still  stood  to  Turkey,  as  a 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  171 

result  of  the  Crimean  War.  Even  at  that,  it  was  a 
difficult  and  dangerous  task,  partly  because  of  the 
fanaticism  of  the  people,  partly  because  the  work  had 
to  be  done  at  great  depths  underground,  and  in  masses 
of  debris  which  were  continually  slipping  and  sliding, 
so  that  even  shoring  was  uncertain.  One  conduit  was 
discovered  because  the  excavators  fell  down  a  hole  and 
landed  in  it;  the  same  manner,  by  the  way,  in  which 
many  years  later  a  Greek  priest  discovered  the  tomb 
of  Mariamne,  Herod's  wife,  outside  of  Jerusalem  to  the 
west. 

Until  very  recently  it  was  impossible  to  supplement 
Warren's  explorations  of  the  temple  hill,  which  gave  us 
chiefly  a  knowledge  of  the  contours  of  the  ground,  show- 
ing us  that  the  original  valleys  of  Jerusalem  are  filled 
up  with  great  masses  of  debris.  So  the  bottom  of  the 
retaining  walls  of  the  great  haram  platform,  which 
roughly  occupies  the  place  of  the  old  temple  platform 
of  Herod's  day,  descended  in  places  over  a  hundred 
feet  beneath  the  present  accumulation  of  ruins  and 
rubbish.  The  Kidron  valley,  so  dear  to  every  lover  of 
Jesus,  proved  to  be  not  only  in  part  buried,  but  the 
brook  which  now  runs  through  it,  in  the  rainy  season 
only,  is  many  feet  eastward  of  its  position  in  Jesus' 
time. 

Along  with  these  excavations  went  the  survey  of 
Palestine,  the  object  of  which  was  to  make  a  complete 
and  authoritative  map  of  Palestine  on  a  scale  of  one 
mile  to  the  inch,  combining  with  it  a  description  of 
all  archaeological  remains  of  antiquity  above  ground. 
This  was  not  completed  until  1880.    America,  which 


172  Bible  and  Spade 

had  commenced  the  work  of  exploration,  was  asked  to 
join  with  England  in  this  survey,  and  an  American 
Palestine  Exploration  Society  was  formed,  to  which 
was  assigned  eastern  Palestine.  Unfortunately,  through 
bad  management  and  lack  of  support,  in  spite  of  the 
high  character  and  scholarship  of  some  of  the  men 
employed,  the  Americans  achieved  nothing,  and  our 
society  soon  went  out  of  existence.  Later,  the  survey 
of  eastern  Palestine  was  taken  up,  partly  by  the  Ger- 
mans, partly  by  the  English,  and  finally  completed 
just  before  the  late  war. 

One  result  of  this  survey  has  been  the  mapping  of 
Palestine  in  a  way  in  which  no  other  country  is  mapped. 
One  can  obtain  a  cast  of  Pealestine  from  the  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund,  a  huge  relief  map,  giving  every  de- 
tail of  the  contour,  and  the  ordinary  person  for  a  very 
small  price  can  obtain  English  and  German  maps  which 
give  all  the  details  that  in  other  countries  are  only  to 
be  gotten  at  a  very  large  price  and  through  special 
influence  from  the  Ordnance  Department.  How  valu- 
able this  work  of  mapping  was  may  be  shown  by  the 
fact  that  it  was  Sir  George  Adam  Smith's  map  and  his 
Geography  of  Palestine  on  the  basis  of  which  Allenby 
planned  his  famous  campaign  in  the  late  war.  Along 
with  these  wonderful  maps,  the  Palestine  Exploration 
Fund  published  also  a  number  of  huge  volumes  of 
memoirs,  giving  the  names  of  all  places  found,  equating 
them  more  accurately  than  had  been  done  heretofore 
with  the  names  contained  in  the  Bible,  locating  all 
visible  antiquities,  giving  levels,  geological  formations, 
watersheds,  and  more. 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  173 

To  this  period  belong  also  certain  interesting  dis- 
coveries of  inscriptions.  Inscriptions  and  figures  of 
King  Seti  I,  and  his  son  Ramses  II,  of  themineteenth 
Egyptian  dynasty,  were  found  in  the  Hauran,  con- 
firming the  accounts  contained  in  Egyptian  inscrip- 
tions of  their  conquests  and  their  rule  in  Palestine.  A 
German  missionary,  Klein,  found  in  1868,  across  the 
Jordan,  at  the  ancient  Diban  of  Moab,  an  inscribed 
stele.  The  French  and  the  Prussians  fell  to  fighting 
about  the  right  to  this.  The  Arabs  thought  that  it 
must  be  full  of  treasure,  and  by  way  of  getting  at  that 
built  fires  against  it  to  make  it  brittle,  and  then  broke 
it  with  stones.  At  last  the  French  acquired  possession, 
and  it  now  stands  in  restored  form  in  the  Louvre. 
By  good  luck  Klein  had  taken  a  squeeze  of  the  inscrip- 
tion so  that  that  was  not  altogether  destroyed  by  the 
unamicable  quarrels  of  the  Christian  nations,  combined 
with  the  greed  of  the  treasure-seeking  Moslem  Arabs. 
This  is  the  famous  Moab  stone,  the  inscription  of 
Mesha,  king  of  Moab,  shortly  after  the  time  of  Ahab, 
the  oldest  inscription  of  any  size  in  the  Phoenician 
alphabet  known  to  exist.  Historically  it  is  very  valu- 
able as  giving  us  a  side  light  on  the  relations  of  Moab 
and  Israel,  amplifying  and  confirming  the  Bible; 
linguistically,  as  showing  that  the  Moabite  and  the 
Hebrew  languages  were  practically  identical,  as  we 
might  have  supposed  from  the  Bible  story;  and  re- 
ligiously, as  our  only  record  of  the  religion  of  Moab. 
The  Moab  stone  belonged  to  about  the  middle  of  the 
ninth  century  before  Christ. 

It  was  in  1882  that  the  first  inscription  of  any  size 


174  Bible  and  Spade 

in  the  Hebrew  language  was  found,  from  a  date  over 
one  hundred  years  later.  This  discovery  was  due,  not 
to  the  genius  or  acumen  of  archaeologists,  but  to  the 
ubiquitous  small  boy.  A  couple  of  lads  had  gone  into 
the  mouth  of  the  tunnel  which  brought  the  water  from 
the  Virgin  spring  under  the  hill  of  Ophel  into  the  in- 
terior of  the  old  city.  Fingering  around  on  the  walls, 
they  found  marks,  which  they  reported  to  Schick,  a 
German  architect  and  the  engineer  of  the  Jerusalem 
municipality.  He  examined  the  tunnel  and  found 
that  there  was  in  fact  an  inscription  there.  This  is 
the  so-called  Siloam  stone.  The  inscription  was  made 
by  the  workmen  who  cut  the  tunnel  through  the  rock 
in  Hezekiah's  time. 

Perhaps  I  may  be  permitted  a  brief  digression  to  tell 
the  further  history  of  this  stone.  Doctor  Cyrus  Adler 
was  sent  by  the  United  States,  in  preparation  for  the 
Chicago  Exposition  of  1893,  to  arrange  for  exhibits 
from  Turkey.  I  was  at  that  time  in  Constantinople, 
engaged  in  working  over  our  finds  from  Nippur,  and 
my  relations  with  the  museum  and  the  archaeological 
authorities  of  Turkey  were  friendly  and  intimate. 
Visiting  Jerusalem,  Adler  was  shown  in  the  house  of  a 
Greek,  by  the  Greek's  wife,  in  the  absence  of  her  hus- 
band, certain  antiquities,  and  to  his  great  surprise 
among  them  was  the  rock-cut  inscription  from  the 
Siloam  tunnel  and  along  with  it  a  facsimile  replica  of 
the  same.  The  Greek  had  had  the  inscription  cut  out 
of  the  rock,  with  the  connivance  of  the  authorities,  and 
was  in  negotiation  with  foreign  museums  for  its  sale. 
He  intended  to  make  a  good  job  of  it,  apparently, 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  175 

by  selling  replicas  to  a  number  of  different  museums 
as  originals,  for  without  having  the  original  stone  to 
compare  with  it  would  have  been  almost  impossible 
for  any  museum  to  discover  such  a  fraud.  Doubtless 
the  fraud  would  have  been  discovered,  but  only  after 
some  years,  when  the  various  museums  ventured  each 
to  put  their  illegitimately  acquired  treasure  on  exhibi- 
tion. Adler  wrote  to  me  in  Constantinople,  stating 
where  the  stone  was,  and  suggesting  that  I  use  my  in- 
fluence to  have  the  imperial  authorities  issue  a  per- 
emptory order  to  the  governor  of  Jerusalem  to  deliver 
both  stones  to  the  museum  at  Constantinople,  the 
original  Siloam  inscription  and  also  the  duplicate. 
Telegraphic  orders  went  to  the  governor  of  Jerusalem 
the  next  day.  His  Excellency  the  governor  of  Jeru- 
salem was  shocked  at  finding  that  such  a  wicked  thing 
had  happened  in  Jerusalem.  The  poor  Greek,  I  pre- 
sume, suffered,  but  the  governor  certainly  did  not  ob- 
tain his  share  of  the  profits.  The  stone  arrived  at 
Jerusalem  while  I  was  still  there,  and  the  director  of 
the  museum,  as  a  special  honor,  when  the  original  in- 
scription was  unboxed,  asked  me  to  select  a  place  for  it 
in  the  museum  and  to  put  it  in  that  place  with  my  own 
hands.  I  did  so.  It  was  a  pretty  heavy  job,  being  all 
that  I  could  do  to  lift  the  stone.  The  story  has  one 
further  sequel.  When  I  was  in  Jerusalem  in  1919-20 
the  Zionist  authorities,  who  are  anxious  to  establish  in 
Jerusalem  a  museum  which  shall  contain  all  antiquities 
from  Palestine,  asked  me,  as  I  had  been  instrumental 
in  placing  the  Siloam  stone  in  Constantinople,  now  to 
co-operate  in  securing  its  return,  that  it  might  be 


176  Bible  and  Spade 

placed  in  the  new  museum  in  Jerusalem.  I  under- 
stand that  this  is  to  be  done. 

One  more  important  inscription  was  found  of  the 
New  Testament  period,  and  in  Greek,  by  Clermont 
Ganneau,  who  performed  a  very  valuable  work  of  ex- 
ploration in  the  employ  of  the  Palestine  Exploration 
Fund.  In  a  Mohammedan  graveyard  in  the  Moham- 
medan quarter  within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  north  of 
the  haram  enclosure,  Ganneau  found,  used  as  a  tomb- 
stone, an  inscribed  slab.  On  examination  it  proved  to 
be  one  of  the  inscriptions  from  the  low  barrier  wall 
which  had  divided  the  court  of  the  Gentiles  from  the 
court  of  the  Jews  in  Herod's  temple.  It  was  a  notice 
to  any  Gentile  who  entered  the  court  of  the  Jews  that 
he  did  so  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  a  confirmation  of  infor- 
mation that  had  come  down  to  us  that  no  Gentile,  even 
though  he  were  a  Roman  subject,  would  be  protected 
if  he  entered  that  enclosure.  The  Jews  under  Roman 
rule  were  permitted  to  preserve  many  of  their  peculiar 
customs,  including  the  sanctity  against  Gentile  con- 
tact of  the  temple  precincts,  the  supposed  violation  of 
which  by  Paul  almost  resulted  in  his  death  and  did 
result  in  his  imprisonment  in  Caesarea  and  later  in 
Rome. 

Another  inscription,  very  recently  discovered,  as 
a  result  not  of  scientific  exploration,  but  almost  by  acci- 
dent, in  some  of  the  various  diggings  on  the  hill  of 
Ophel,  David's  old  city,  without  the  walls  of  the  haram 
enclosure,  tells  us  that  there  was  at  this  point,  in  the 
first  Christian  century,  a  synagogue  of  Libertines,  and 
connected  with  it  a  hospice  for  the  entertainment  of 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  111 

Libertines  visiting  Jerusalem  for  the  feasts.  This 
proprietary  or  hereditary  synagogue,  for  such  it  would 
seem  from  the  inscription  to  have  been,  may  have  been 
the  Synagogue  of  the  Libertines  referred  to  in  the  book 
of  Acts. 

Furthermore,  on  the  so-called  tomb  of  James,  in  the 
valley  of  the  Kidron,  there  is  an  inscription  in  square 
Hebrew  characters  from  which  we  learn  that  this  tomb 
belonged  to  one  of  the  priestly  families,  and  it  would 
seem,  from  this  inscription,  that  this  and  the  kindred 
tombs,  known  as  the  pillar  of  Absalom  and  the  tomb  of 
Zachariah,  must  have  been  in  existence  in  the  time  of 
Christ,  and  frequently  passed  by  him  on  his  way  up 
and  down  the  Kidron  valley  to  the  water  gate.  These 
are  the  few  inscriptions  of  any  importance  which  have 
been  discovered  in  Palestine,  all  of  them,  as  it  will  be 
observed,  the  result  of  accident.  Excavations  have, 
unfortunately,  not  been  productive  of  inscriptions. 

Systematic  excavation  in  Palestine  began  in  the  year 
1890  when,  after  a  period  of  quiescence,  the  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund  resolved  to  renew  and  enlarge  its 
activities.  Petrie,  who  had  just  begun  to  win  his 
laurels  in  Egypt,  was  called  to  examine  the  mound  of 
Tel  Hesi,  on  the  edge  of  the  Philistine  plain,  some 
twenty  miles  or  so  back  of  Gaza.  This  mound  rose 
about  150  feet  above  the  plain  at  the  bend  of  a  stream, 
and  sixty  feet  of  this  proved  to  be  an  accumulation  of 
debris  of  the  ancient  city  of  Lachish.  Petrie  spent  but 
a  very  brief  time  here,  simply  scraping  down,  as  it 
were,  the  mound  on  its  highest  and  most  exposed  side, 
but  he  succeeded  from  that  brief  examination  in  giving 


178  Bible  and  Spade 

us  a  pretty  good  picture  of  the  history  of  the  place, 
and  laying  the  foundations  of  our  later  understanding 
of  the  story  of  the  pottery  of  Palestine.  It  must  be 
understood  that  in  Palestine,  as  in  Egypt  and  Greece, 
almost  the  best  record  of  dates,  where  there  are  no 
inscriptions,  is  obtained  from  the  pottery,  and  not  only 
the  best  record  of  date,  but  of  locality  also.  Explorers 
are  able  to  determine  the  commercial  relations  of  a  town 
by  the  potsherds  found  there,  pottery  carrying  in  a 
peculiar  degree  the  personal  stamp  of  its  makers.  Bliss, 
an  American,  followed  Petrie  at  Lachish  and  cut  out 
a  sort  of  a  quarter  section  of  the  mound,  much  as  one 
cuts  a  piece  out  of  a  pie,  and  examined  it.  We  were 
all  looking  and  hoping  for  the  discovery  of  inscriptions, 
of  course.  He  did,  indeed,  find  one  inscribed  tablet, 
the  first  found  in  Palestinian  soil.  It  proved  to  be  from 
the  Egyptian  government  to  the  king  of  Lachish,  a 
part  of  that  same  correspondence  of  which  the  other 
end  was  found  at  Tel  el-Amarna  in  Egypt  in  1888. 
This  record,  like  those  tablets,  was  written  in  the  cunei- 
form script  and  the  Babylonian  language.  Bliss's  ex- 
cavations showed  us  that  in  such  a  city  as  Lachish  we 
had  to  deal  with  a  place  much  older  than  the  Hebrew 
conquest,  and  to  this  extent  his  excavations  confirmed 
the  Egyptian  records  from  which  we  had  learned  al- 
ready that  almost  all  the  well-known  cities  of  Palestine 
were  in  existence  as  Canaanite  cities  hundreds  of  years 
before  the  Hebrews  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  that 
places  which  later  became  Hebrew  shrines  and  sanctu- 
aries possessed  the  same  character  in  the  Canaanite 
period.    The  excavations  at  Lachish  were  never  fin- 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  179 

ished;  only  a  small  piece  of  the  town  was  excavated  and 
then,  following  the  mistaken  policy  resulting  from  the 
great  desire  to  explore  Jerusalem,  Bliss  was  transferred 
to  that  city,  where  he  determined  the  line  of  some  of  the 
ancient  walls  to  the  south  of  the  present  city. 

It  was  not  until  1898  that  excavations  in  excavatable 
sites  were  again  undertaken.  And  here  again  the  mis- 
take was  made  of  digging  a  little  here  and  a  little  there, 
of  not  undertaking  one  of  the  great  and  promising 
Israelite  sites,  but  selecting  rather  small  and  relatively 
unimportant  sites,  not  on  true  Israelitic  territory,  but 
in  the  border-land  of  the  Shephelah,  a  low  line  of  hills 
between  Judea  and  Philistia.  The  sites  examined  were 
the  ancient  Azekah,  Tel  es-Safi,  which  may  be  the 
Philistine  Gath  or  the  Hebrew  Libnah,  Tel  el-Judeideh, 
and  the  ancient  Marissa,  the  home  city  of  the  prophet 
Micah.  The  results  of  this  work  were,  on  the  whole, 
disappointing.  They  gave  us  information  principally 
about  the  pre-Israelitic  and  post-Israelitic  inhabitants 
of  that  territory  where  the  principal  excavations  were 
conducted.  At  Marissa,  Bliss  unearthed  a  city  of  the 
Seleucidan  period,  just  reaching  but  not  exploring  the 
Hebrew  town  beneath. 

These  excavations  set  going  an  immense  amount  of 
illicit  digging.  The  natives,  discovering  that  there 
was  a  demand  for  antiquities,  showed  a  skill  in  discov- 
ering ancient  cemeteries  far  beyond  that  of  the  scien- 
tific explorer.  I  might  add  that  the  great  enemy  of 
archaeology  and  of  the  study  of  antiquity  is  the  col- 
lector of  antiquities,  the  man  who  is  eager  to  obtain 
relics  for  some  collection.    It  is  less  sinful  when  the 


180  Bible  and  Spade 

collection  is  a  museum  collection,  but  the  museums 
also  have  been  great  sinners  against  scientific  research  in 
this  matter.  It  is  collectors  who  tempt  the  natives  to 
violate  the  laws  in  searching  for  and  selling  antiquities; 
unfortunately,  for  one  antiquity  gotten  in  this  way 
means  a  hundred  that  are  destroyed.  Moreover,  an 
antiquity  so  found  can  never  be  made  to  tell  its  full 
story.  To  do  that  one  must  know  its  exact  provenance, 
where  it  was  found,  in  connection  with  what  else,  and 
the  like.  I  shall  never  forget  the  picture  of  destruc- 
tion which  I  saw  when  I  visited  the  site  of  ancient 
Marissa  a  year  after  Bliss's  excavations  at  that  place. 
For  at  least  two  miles  up  and  down  the  large  valley 
westward  of  Marissa  the  ground  was  honeycombed 
with  pits  and  holes,  and  similar  pits  and  holes  ran  up 
the  little  valleys  on  both  sides  of  the  great  valley. 
How  many  hundreds  of  graves  had  been  unearthed, 
how  many  objects  had  been  destroyed,  I  do  not  know. 
Doctor  Thiersch  and  I  had  heard  of  the  discovery  at 
this  point  of  some  interesting  objects  by  the  natives, 
and  we  had  come  to  investigate.  By  a  peculiar  good 
chance,  and  after  much  persistence,  we  were  able  to 
discover  finally,  among  the  tombs  which  had  been 
unearthed  and  rifled  by  the  natives,  some  four  tombs 
of  a  remarkable  character,  unlike  anything  heretofore 
found  in  Palestine — the  painted  tombs  of  Marissa. 
One  of  these  proved,  from  the  inscriptions  which  we 
were  able  to  recover,  to  have  been  the  tomb  of  the  head 
of  a  colony  of  Phoenicians  planted  at  that  place  when 
the  Ptolemies  were  in  control  of  the  country,  some- 
where in  the  neighborhood  of  200  B.  C.    These  tombs 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  181 

made  no  great  revelations,  but  they  were,  neverthe- 
less, an  interesting  and  important  discovery,  throwing 
light  on  the  political,  social,  and  religious  conditions 
of  a  little-known  period,  and  one  of  them  was,  in  fact, 
the  earliest  treatise  on  natural  history  heretofore  dis- 
covered. They  were  thought  worthy,  therefore,  of 
being  published  as  one  of  the  memoirs  of  the  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund.  It  was  a  sad  thing  that  this  ceme- 
tery could  not  have  been  explored  by  scientific  ex- 
plorers. We  shall  never  know  now  the  story  those 
hundreds  of  graves  might  have  told. 

The  next  excavation  undertaken  by  the  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund  was  at  Gezer,  a  city  which  the 
Pharaoh  gave  as  dower  to  his  daughter  when  she  mar- 
ried Solomon.  Learning  by  experience,  this  excava- 
tion was  conducted  for  a  longer  time  and  a  greater 
portion  of  the  mound  was  excavated  than  thereto- 
fore. This  work  was  in  charge  of  Professor  Stewart 
MacAlister,  who  had  been  Doctor  Bliss's  assistant  in 
his  excavations  in  the  Shephelah,  and  had  behind  him 
therefore  the  advantage  of  experience.  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  visit  Professor  MacAlister  several 
times  while  his  excavations  were  in  progress.  The 
reputation  of  my  good  fortune  in  excavations  in  Baby- 
lonia had  preceded  me,  enhanced  by  my  good  luck  in 
helping  to  find  the  old  cemetery  of  Marissa  and  its 
painted  tombs,  the  most  striking  and  picturesque 
discovery,  certainly,  which  had  been  made  in  Palestine 
up  to  that  time.  The  result  was  that  the  workmen 
regarded  me,  to  use  our  phrase,  as  a  mascot.  They 
were  sure  that  my  coming  would  bring  them  in  some 


182  Bible  and  Spade 

way  good  iuck,  and  they  watched  my  every  move. 
This  being  called  to  my  attention,  I  took  advantage 
of  it  and  asked  of  Mr.  MacAlister  a  favor.  I  had 
observed  a  certain  stone  projecting  from  the  ground, 
from  the  character  and  position  of  which  I  was  led  to 
believe  that  there  was  something  of  great  importance 
beneath.  Mr.  MacAlister  had  commenced  his  exca- 
vations in  the  most  methodical,  scientific  way  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  town,  but  at  the  rate  of  progress  which 
he  was  making  it  might  be  a  couple  of  years  before  he 
reached  this  stone.  In  the  meantime  money  might 
give  out,  the  authorities  in  England  might  lose  interest 
because  of  the  lack  of  production  of  valuable  returns, 
or  there  might  be  some  political  catastrophe,  and  this 
spot  would  never  be  excavated.  I  found  in  talking 
with  Mr.  MacAlister  that  he  agreed  with  me  that  the 
indications  at  that  place  pointed  to  something  very 
important.  I  urged  him  to  take  his  men  off  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town  and  put  them  instantly  at  work  at 
that  spot.  The  work  could  be  done  as  scientifically, 
but  perhaps  with  a  little  more  difficulty,  from  the 
interior.  His  father,  Professor  MacAlister,  the  eth- 
nologist, of  Cambridge,  who  chanced  to  be  visiting  him 
at  the  same  time,  seconded  my  request,  and  Mr.  Mac- 
Alister did  as  we  desired. 

At  that  point  was  discovered  the  most  interesting 
and  important  of  all  the  discoveries  at  Gezer,  the  an- 
cient temple  with  its  old  mazzeboth,  or  sacred  pillars  of 
phallic  significance.  Among  these  was  a  stone  which 
had  been  carried  off,  apparently,  from  some  shrine 
at  Jerusalem  or  its  neighborhood  in  some  raid,  or  as 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  183 

the  result  of  some  victory,  and  set  up  in  the  shrine  at 
Gezer,  just  as  on  the  Moab  stone,  of  which  I  spoke  a 
moment  since,  Mesha,  king  of  Moab,  tells  us  that  he 
carried  off  such  stones  from  other  sanctuaries  and 
erected  them  in  the  shrines  of  his  own  land.  The 
chief  stone  of  the  cult,  a  natural  phallus,  polished  by 
much  kissing,  was  quite  small.  This  had  been  flanked 
by  two  other  very  large  stones,  until  gradually  there 
grew  up  a  row  of  stones,  one  of  them  at  least  stolen 
from  another  sanctuary.  Apparently  there  had  stood 
there  also  an  asherah  or  wooden  pole,  such  as  the  He- 
brew Scriptures  describe  as  existing  at  all  Canaanite 
shrines,  and  until  the  time  of  Isaiah  certainly  at  all 
the  Hebrew  shrines  in  Palestine.  Also  there  was  a 
cave,  for  caves  were  almost  a  necessary  concomitant 
of  these  old  shrines.  There  is  one  at  Jerusalem,  un- 
der the  Rock.  There  is  one  on  Mount  Gerizzim, 
where  the  great  Samaritan  sanctuary  stood;  and 
they  have  been  found  elsewhere.  But  I  may  not  de- 
lay too  long  on  this.  In  connection  with  this  sanc- 
tuary were  found  those  pitiful  and  tragic  evidences  of 
the  truthfulness  of  the  representations  of  the  prophets 
of  Israel  with  regard  to  the  religion  of  Canaan,  the 
remains  of  little  children,  first-born  sons,  who  had  been 
sacrificed  by  their  parents,  as  also  human  foundation 
sacrifices.  There  were  found  also  abundant  evidences 
of  that  obscene  sex  cult,  the  corruption  of  his  wife  by 
which  made  Hosea  a  prophet,  and  which  is  mentioned 
over  and  over  again  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  as  the 
great  corrupting  influence  of  the  Canaanite  religion, 
which  permeated  also  the  religion  of  Israel  and  threat- 


184  Bible  and  Spade 

ened  to  bring  on  Israel  the  wrath  of  God  and  the 
destruction  of  the  state.  Everywhere  about  were  the 
unmistakable  evidences  of  this  cult  in  the  abundant 
phallic  and  other  sexual  emblems  and  symbols. 

MacAlister's  excavation  of  Gezer  enabled  us  first  to 
tell  the  story  of  early  Canaan.  It  is  to  his  work  that 
we  are  indebted  for  our  knowledge  of  Palestine  in  its 
barbarous  state,  occupied  by  a  troglodyte,  non-Semit- 
ic population,  very  small  in  stature,  using  only  stone 
instruments,  making  rude  pottery,  like  most  cave- 
dwellers  addicted  to  drawing  pictures  on  the  walls, 
burning  their  dead,  eating  pigs.  It  was  not  until 
about  2500  B.  C.  that  these  were  replaced  by  a  Semitic 
stock.  It  is  chiefly  through  the  study  of  the  pottery, 
the  Egyptian  scarabs,  and  the  few  seals,  etc.,  which 
were  found  that  MacAlister  was  able  to  restore  to 
this  extent  the  history  of  those  times — to  show  the 
slow  development  of  civilization  out  of  barbarism, 
the  relations  of  Palestine  with  the  outside  world,  the 
influence  of  Egypt,  the  coming  in  of  the  Hebrews, 
and  of  new  religious  ideas.  One  of  his  interesting  dis- 
coveries was  a  rock-cut,  sloping  tunnel  descending  to 
a  depth  of  over  ninety  feet,  by  which  the  Gezerites 
procured  living  water  under  their  city  within  the  forti- 
fications. The  remains  found  at  the  mouth  of  the 
tunnel  show  that  this  was  in  use  before  2000  B.  C. 
At  that  period  Canaanites  were  doing  wonderful  work 
in  rock-cutting,  which  was,  in  reality,  part  of  their 
inheritance  from  the  barbaric  peoples  that  preceded 
them.  It  was  the  older  troglodytes  who  began  that 
cutting  into  the  rock,  first  enlarging  old  caves,  then 


H 


■HI 


Photograph  by  Air.  Lars  Lind,  American  Colony.     Jerusalem. 

Rock-cut  pool  and  secret  water  passage  beneath  Gibeon, 
from  before  the  Hebrew  conquest  of  Canaan. 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  185 

building  caves  of  their  own,  which  has  left  such  a  won- 
derful underground  world,  as  yet  only  half  explored, 
beneath  the  Palestine  we  see. 

In  a  former  lecture  I  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  ancient  Jerusalem  before  David's  time  was 
supplied  with  water  by  rock-cut  shafts  and  tunnels 
as  Gezer  was.  On  my  last  visit  to  Jerusalem,  in  the 
spring  of  1920,  my  attention  was  called  by  Mr.  Lars 
Lind  of  the  American  colony  to  the  fact  that  there  was 
an  interesting  rock-cut  fountain  under  the  city  of 
Gibeon.  Exploring  that,  and  swimming  across  the 
fountain,  which  I  assure  you  was  very  cold  and  un- 
desirable as  a  swimming-pool,  stirring  up  some  two 
feet  of  mud  by  sounding  for  the  bottom,  and  thus 
arousing  the  wrath  of  the  whole  town  of  Gezer,  whdse 
water-supply  we  were  ruining  for  the  next  week,  we 
found  on  the  other  side  of  the  pool  steps  cut  in  the 
rock  leading  up  to  a  rock-cut  tunnel,  which  had  once 
been  the  means  by  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
in  time  of  siege  could  secure  an  inexhaustible  supply  of 
living  water.1  There  were  evidences  there  as  in  Jeru- 
salem of  an  early  and  a  later  tunnel,  the  earlier  one  a 
straight  shaft,  the  second  one  a  sloping  tunnel  with 
steps.    But  this  is  an  aside. 

Of  inscriptions  there  were  found  at  Gezer  only  two 
clay  tablets  of  the  seventh  century  B.  C,  one  an 
Assyrian  document  from  the  time  when  an  Assyrian 
governor  resided  in  the  town;  but  none  of  those  He- 
brew tablets  which  we  had  expected  were  found  here. 

1  As  I  found  later  this  had  already  been  observed,  and  a  brief 
notice  of  its  existence  published  by  Vincent. 


186  Bible  and  Spade 

After  Gezer  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  exca- 
vated at  Ain  Shems,  the  Beth  Shemesh,  house  of  the 
Sun,  of  Israelite  times,  which  was  the  old  sanctuary 
of  the  tribe  of  Dan,  whose  hero  was  Sampson  the  Sun- 
man,  and  whose  original  god  was  Shemesh  the  Sun. 
The  Germans  and  Austrians  excavated  in  part  the 
ancient  Taanach  and  the  ancient  Megiddo  on  the  south 
side  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  In  Taanach  the  Aus- 
trians found  some  half-dozen  clay  tablets,  of  a  very 
early  pre-Israelitic  date,  inscribed  in  the  Babylonian 
script  and  character,  part  of  a  much  larger  archive 
which  had  been  robbed  or  carried  off  for  some  reason, 
only  these  few  by  accident  being  left  behind.  Here 
too  were  found  evidences  of  that  cruel  practice  of  child 
sacrifice,  and  of  the  sexual  corruption  of  the  old  Ca- 
naanite  religion.  In  Megiddo,  the  Germans  discovered, 
in  the  house,  apparently,  of  the  governor  of  the  town, 
a  beautifully  inscribed  seal,  with  the  symbol  of  the 
lion  and  an  inscription  "Of  Shema,  servant  of  Jero- 
boam." Apparently  he  was  an  official  of  Jeroboam  II, 
king  of  Samaria.  Also  here  were  found  one  or  two 
temples  of  the  house  type,  that  is,  enclosed  buildings, 
one  of  them  containing  in  the  small  precisely  such 
pillars  as  we  find  described  in  the  book  of  Kings  as 
standing  before  the  temple  to  represent  the  divine 
power  within  the  great  pillars  called  Jachin  and  Boaz. 
All  other  shrines,  such  as  were  found  at  Tel  es-Safi  and 
Gezer,  were  out-of-door  shrines,  such  as  the  Israelites 
themselves  had  at  Bethel  and  presumably  at  Dan  and 
on  Mount  Gerizzim  by  Shechem.  Doctor  Sellin  also 
excavated  in  Jericho,  and  later,  immediately  before 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  187 

the  war,  for  a  brief  two  weeks  he  dug  in  the  eastern 
hold  of  the  ancient  Shechem. 

The  place  of  all  others  which  I  had  desired  to  see 
excavated  in  Palestine,  and  which  I  recommended  to 
the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  as  from  my  experience 
in  Babylonia  seeming  to  me  the  most  hopeful  site,  was 
Samaria.  This  was  in  part  excavated  by  Harvard 
University.  The  visible  remains  at  that  site  are  Roman 
and  Herodian,  and  there  the  excavators  found  a  fine 
basilica,  and  a  great  Roman  temple,  also  the  remains 
of  various  cities,  one  below  the  other,  from  the  Roman 
period  backward  to  the  Hebrew  and  no  further,  for 
this  is  one  of  the  few  sites  not  of  great  antiquity,  not 
antedating  the  Hebrew  conquest,  but  first  occupied 
by  the  Israelites.  Omri,  king  of  Israel,  chose  this 
place  as  his  capital,  and  built  the  first  city  of  Samaria 
on  an  unoccupied  site,  we  are  told  in  the  Bible;  and  the 
explorers  reached  a  building  which  seems  to  have  been 
a  part  of  the  palace  of  Omri,  above  which  stood  a 
finer  palace.  This  is  assumed  to  have  been  the  palace 
of  Ahab,  for  in  it  was  found  an  Egyptian  vase  bearing 
the  name  of  King  Osorkon,  contemporary  with  Ahab. 
Here  was  found  also  a  store  of  potsherds  with  letters 
smeared  on  with  paint.  Potsherds  constituted,  you 
must  remember,  the  note-books  and  the  letters  and 
the  records  for  common  things  in  the  old  world,  in 
Egypt  and  Greece.  This  was  our  first  knowledge  of 
their  similar  use  in  Palestine.  These  potsherds  con- 
tained the  names  of  persons  who  had  turned  in  their 
tribute  or  their  rent  of  oil,  wine,  and  the  like,  with 
statements  of  the  amount;  but  the  most  important 
part  of  these  records  is  the  names  they  contain. 


188  Bible  and  Spade 

Besides  these  there  have  been  a  few  lesser  excava- 
tions of  synagogues  in  Palestine,  the  finest  of  which 
was  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum,  which  stood  appar- 
ently on  the  very  site,  perhaps  was  a  replica,  of  the 
synagogue  built  by  the  Roman  centurion  and  in  use 
at  the  time  of  Christ. 

In  Jerusalem,  just  before  the  war,  excavations  were 
conducted  outside  of  the  present  walls  to  the  south- 
ward. On  the  western  hill,  the  one  now  called  Zion, 
the  Assumptionist  Fathers  laid  bare  a  little  part  of  its 
eastern  side,  so  long  as  their  funds  held  out,  finding 
what  seems  to  have  been  the  house  of  the  high  priest, 
Caiaphas;  also  the  stair  street  which  led  down  from  the 
top  of  the  hill,  where  the  house  was  in  which  Jesus 
ate  the  Last  Supper  with  his  disciples,  to  the  pool  of 
Siloam,  and  the  water  gate. 

On  the  eastern  hill,  ancient  Ophel,  the  German 
archaeologist,  Gunkel,  conducted  some  slight  excava- 
tions in  the  first  decade  of  this  century.  Later  Cap- 
tain Parker,  an  Englishman,  conducted  more  considera- 
ble underground  excavations  on  the  eastern  side  of 
this  hill,  about  the  Virgin's  spring  and  northward.  By 
the  side  of  these  latter  excavations  southward,  through 
the  generosity  of  Rothschild  of  Paris,  excavations 
were  also  conducted  under  Jewish  auspices,  Parker 
and  Weil  giving  the  general  impression  of  being  in 
great  rivalry  to  find  the  old  royal  tombs  and  the  old 
temple  treasures.  Whatever  the  cause  of  these  two 
excavations,  they  have  brought  to  us  considerable 
knowledge  of  the  city,  enabling  us  to  understand, 
somewhat  better  than  before,  the  history  of  that  part 


Frank  Mountain,  an  artificial  mountain  a  few  miles  southeast  of 

Bethlehem,  built  by  Herod  for  his  tomb,  as  the  early 

Pharaohs  built  pyramids. 

Later,  a  crusading  fort,  where  the  Knights  Templars  made  their  last  stand. 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  189 

of  Jerusalem,  and  bringing  us  final  confirmation  of  the 
original  site  of  David's  city,  of  the  character  of  that 
city,  and  of  the  place  of  the  Acra  of  the  Maccabean 
period,  so  long  in  dispute.  In  my  last  lecture  I  told 
you  the  story  of  the  84th  Psalm.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  to  have  made  such  a  discovery  as  that 
before  the  excavations  of  the  Assumptionist  Fathers, 
and  of  Parker  and  Weil. 

This  completes  the  list  of  excavations  which  deserve 
that  name  in  Palestine  before  the  war.  With  condi- 
tions after  the  war  I  will  deal  at  the  conclusion  of  this 
lecture.  I  have  referred  to  the  lesser  excavations  con- 
ducted in  various  parts  of  the  country  by  natives  to 
procure  material  for  dealers.  The  results  of  these 
excavations  have  gone,  for  the  most  part,  to  museums 
and  collectors  in  different  parts  of  the  world.  They 
consist  of  pottery,  glass,  seals,  and  small  objects  and 
stone  implements.  There  are  also  collections  in  Jeru- 
salem, partly  in  the  hands  of  dealers,  partly  in  the 
hands  of  institutions  and  private  persons.  The  larg- 
est of  these  collections  was  one  made  by  the  German 
Benedictines  before  the  war.  The  most  scientifically 
arranged  is  that  of  the  Assumptionist  Fathers  at  Notre 
Dame  de  France.  The  White  Fathers,  who  have  the 
old  crusading  Church  of  Saint  Anne,  which  was  given 
to  the  French  after  the  Crimean  War,  and  who  have 
excavated  the  ancient  pool  of  Bethesda,  have  a  collec- 
tion of  especial  value  for  the  ordinary  Bible  reader, 
each  object  being  labelled  as  illustrating  something 
in  the  Bible.  The  Palestine  Exploration  Fund,  the 
Municipality,  the  Dominican  Fathers,  and  the  Ameri- 


190  Bible  and  Spade 

can  School  also  have  small  collections.  Mr.  Herbert 
Clark  possesses  an  extraordinary  collection  of  stone 
objects  amassed  by  himself,  with  some  beautiful 
pieces  of  glass,  a  few  old  Philistine  double  axes,  and 
the  like;  and  others  have  smaller  collections.  By  an 
examination  of  these  the  present-day  scholar  is  able 
to  obtain  in  Jerusalem  itself  a  very  practical  educa- 
tion in  the  antiquities  of  the  country. 

Palaeolithic  stone  implements  seem  to  be  pretty  well 
distributed  over  the  surface  everywhere;  they  have  also 
been  found  in  old  caves  on  the  Phoenician  coast,  under 
solid  masses  of  breccia,  and  would  presumably  be  found 
in  some  of  the  caves  of  Palestine  if  they  were  similarly 
explored.  This  evidences  the  occupation  of  the  coun- 
try at  a  very  early  time  by  a  people  in  a  very  rude 
state.  But  evidently,  also,  rude  stone  implements  con- 
tinued to  be  used  until  a  very  late  date,  or  these 
Palaeolithic  remains  would  not  be  found  distributed  as 
they  are  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  country.  Palaeo- 
lithic implements  or  even  eolithic  implements  are  not 
in  themselves  evidences  of  a  great  antiquity,  but 
rather  of  a  low  grade  of  civilization. 

Nowhere  in  Palestine  are  those  beautiful  neolithic 
implements  found  which  are  so  distinctive  a  charac- 
teristic of  Egypt.  The  character  of  the  stone  imple- 
ments found  in  Palestine  is,  in  general,  an  evidence 
of  the  relatively  backward  state  of  that  country  in 
material  civilization  in  comparison  with  neighboring 
regions  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  the  latest. 
Glass,  it  may  be  noted  also,  is  very  rare  in  Palestine, 
and  the  specimens  found  poor.     That  is,  however,  in 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  191 

part  at  least,  due  to  religious  prejudice  on  the  part  of 
the  Jews.  The  best  glass  found  in  Palestine  is  that 
from  the  tombs  of  Marissa,  which  place,  as  pointed 
out  above,  was  occupied  in  the  Seleucidan  period  by 
a  Phoenician  colony. 

I  have  spoken  about  our  discovery  at  Marissa  of  the 
painted  tombs.  In  those  we  found  the  first  represen- 
tation of  the  cock  in  Palestine.  This  bird  did  not 
appear  there  until  a  relatively  late  date  owing  again 
to  the  religious  prejudices  of  the  Jews.  It  was  my 
investigation  of  the  history  of  this  creature,  his  source, 
his  date  of  introduction  in  various  civilized  countries, 
which  led  me  to  observe  what  had  theretofore  been 
overlooked,  that  the  name  of  the  cock  appears  once 
in  the  Old  Testament,  namely  in  the  book  of  Proverbs, 
chapter  30,  verses  29-31.  You  will  not  find  the  name  in 
your  English  Bibles,  however,  because  the  scribes  who 
put  in  shape  the  text  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  which  has 
come  down  to  us,  the  so-called  Masorah,  were  offended 
by  what  seemed  to  them  the  indecent  allusion  in  the 
line  of  this  verse  referring  to  the  cock  and  drew  a 
line  through  the  verse  diagonally  from  the  left  upper 
corner  downward  and  across  toward  the  lower  right 
corner.  The  result  is  that  the  first  line  was  preserved 
intact,  a  little  less  of  the  second,  and  so  on  down  to 
the  bottom.  The  cock  was  eliminated,  which  was  the 
intention  of  the  scribes,  and  the  whole  verse  was  made 
quite  unintelligible.  Fortunately  for  our  scientific 
information  the  original  text  has  come  down  to  us  in 
the  so-called  versions  or  translations,  by  means  of 
which  it  is  possible  to  restore  the  eliminated  part.    Be- 


192  Bible  and  Spade 

cause  of  his  unclean  habits  the  cock  had  a  hard  time 
in  gaining  entrance  into  the  Holy  Land,  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  the  first  representation  of  him  found 
there  was  on  the  border-land,  in  a  Phoenician  colony 
in  Edomite  territory. 

The  collections  to  which  I  have  referred  are  part  of 
the  material  for  the  study  of  underground  Palestine, 
and  especially  underground  Jerusalem,  which  have 
grown  up  in  the  latter  days.  There  was  nothing  of 
the  sort  in  Jerusalem  when  I  first  visited  it  thirty-one 
years  ago.  I  could  see  nothing  then  but  that  which 
was  above  the  ground,  and  going  back  to  my  notes  of 
travel  and  observation  at  that  time  I  realize  how  little 
I  did  see  of  Palestine,  and  how  imperfect  an  idea  I 
acquired  of  the  old  city  of  Jerusalem  and  of  the  old 
country  of  Palestine  and  of  its  inhabitants  in  compari- 
son with  that  which  I  now  possess.  Every  excavation 
for  a  building  site  in  Jerusalem  lays  bare  ancient  re- 
mains and  unearths  almost  inevitably  antiquities. 
The  scientific  excavation  and  exploration  which  I  have 
described  first  called  attention  to  this,  and  pretty  soon 
efforts  began  to  be  made  to  collect  what  was  found 
and  record  what  was  seen  in  the  course  of  building 
operations.  Architect  Schick,  to  whom  I  have  before 
referred,  did  an  extremely  valuable  work  in  this  direc- 
tion in  Jerusalem.  So  also  did  Selah  Merrill,  who  was 
twice  American  consul,  each  consulate  covering  a 
considerable  period  of  years.  He  was  one  of  the  former 
members  of  the  American  Palestine  Exploration  So- 
ciety to  whom  had  been  assigned  the  survey  of  eastern 
Palestine.    Among  the  French  monastic  orders  also 


~     .— 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  193 

were  some  fathers  who  developed  a  particular  interest 
in  antiquities,  Pere  Barnabe  of  the  Franciscans,  Genner 
Durand  of  the  Assumptionists,  LaGrange,  Vincent, 
Abel,  and  others  of  the  Dominicans.  The  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund,  and  later  the  similar  German  so- 
ciety, encouraged  study  and  observation  in  various 
directions,  the  collection  of  folk-lore  and  folk-songs, 
meteorological  observations,  customs,  and  habits, 
village  traditions,  and  the  like.  Visiting  Palestine  for 
the  second  time,  twelve  years  after  my  first  visit,  I 
found,  as  a  result  of  the  work  which  had  been  going  on, 
a  vastly  different  situation.  I  came  away  from  that 
visit  knowing  something  of  Palestine  under  the  ground. 
My  last  visit,  a  little  over  a  year  ago,  showed  me  a 
very  rapid  progress  in  the  interval,  and  I  am  glad  to 
say  that  we  Americans  have  played  an  honorable 
part  in  this  development  of  knowledge  of  underground 
Palestine,  not  only  through  our  consul,  to  whom  refer- 
ence was  made,  but  through  the  American  School  of 
Archaeological  Research,  which  was  established  by  the 
efforts  of  the  late  Professor  Thayer  of  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  about  the  commencement  of  this  cen- 
tury, and  which  has  had  as  its  annual  directors  some 
of  the  most  distinguished  Bible  scholars  of  this  country. 
One  result  of  all  this  has  been  the  identification  with 
a  reasonable  degree  of  certainty  of  some  of  the  most 
important  Biblical  sites  in  Jerusalem,  which  were  be- 
fore uncertain.  We  now  understand  pretty  well  the 
configuration  of  the  temple  site,  and  especially  just 
where  the  great  altar  stood,  namely  on  that  natural 
rock  which  to  this  day  the  Moslems  regard  as  so  sacred. 


194  Bible  and  Spade 

This  is  enclosed  by  a  beautiful  dome  or  qubbeh,  which 
is  generally  known  under  the  false  title  of  the  Mosque 
of  Omar,  its  true  title  being  the  Dome  of  the  Rock.  I 
think  we  may  now  say  that  the  traditional  sites  of  the 
tomb  of  our  Lord  and  of  Golgotha  are  determined  to 
be  the  true  sites.  When  I  first  saw  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre,  in  1890,  I  confess  that  I  was  repelled 
by  it.  I  could  not  imagine  how  Golgotha  and  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  could  ever  really  have  been  there,  and 
fancied  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  monastic  mediaeval 
myth.  When  I  visited  it  again  in  1902,  with  a  little 
better  perception  of  what  was  under  the  surface,  a 
little  better  understanding  of  the  early  history  of  the 
city,  I  found  myself  in  doubt.  I  remember  comparing 
notes  with  Pere  Vincent,  who,  as  I  have  already  stated, 
is  probably  the  best  Jerusalem  archaeologist  in  the 
world.  He  then  felt  that  while  he  might  wish  that 
were  the  site,  he  yet  was  doubtful.  There  were  argu- 
ments pro  and  con.  With  ever-increasing  knowledge 
of  the  configuration  of  underground  Jerusalem,  on  my 
last  visit  I  became  convinced  that  the  traditional  site 
was  indeed  the  true  site,  and  I  found  to  my  great  plea- 
sure that  Vincent  had  reached  the  same  conclusion  and 
was  publishing  a  large  book  showing  the  growth  and 
development  of  the  buildings  there. 

It  is  clear  from  all  accounts  that  in  Constantine's 
day  a  tradition  still  persisted  of  the  place  of  the  cruci- 
fixion and  the  place  of  burial.  Now  tomb  sites  are 
easier  to  identify,  I  think,  than  anything  else  in  Pales- 
tine, and  it  would  have  been  a  strange  thing  if  in  that 
relatively  brief  time  all  tradition  of  the  site  of  Jesus' 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  195 

tomb  and  the  place  of  the  crucifixion  and  the  resur- 
rection had  vanished.  But  over  the  site  had  accumu- 
lated an  immense  amount  of  debris,  and  the  Romans 
had  built  there  a  temple  of  Venus.  When  this  debris 
was  removed,  in  the  desire  to  do  honor  to  and  to  pre- 
serve Golgotha  and  the  Tomb  for  Helena's  sake  and 
for  the  sake  of  the  great  body  of  her  fellow  Chris- 
tians, Constantine's  architect  cut  away  the  slope  of 
the  hill  in  which  was  the  tomb  of  Joseph,  where  Jesus 
had  been  buried,  so  as  to  leave  that  tomb  isolated, 
standing  by  itself.  In  doing  this,  he  did  not  cut 
away  quite  all  the  tombs  in  that  hill  slope,  however, 
and  in  the  little  Syrian  chapel  behind  the  Sepulchre 
there  still  exist  one  or  two  old  Jewish  tombs.  Simi- 
larly in  order  effectively  to  make  Golgotha  a  part  of 
this  great  memorial  he  cut  off  the  slopes  of  that  hill, 
destroying  altogether  its  original  skull  shape,  but  leav- 
ing intact  the  summit,  and  especially  that  part  of  the 
hill  on  which  the  cross  must  have  stood.  Both  the 
Tomb  and  the  remaining  portion  of  Golgotha  were 
incrusted  with  fine  stones,  alike  to  do  them  honor  and 
to  preserve  from  injury  what  was  left.  Recent  study 
has  made  it  pretty  clear  that  this  traditional  Golgotha 
must  have  been  just  outside  the  wall  of  our  Lord's 
lifetime,  in  a  sort  of  a  corner.  That  is,  as  we  now  know 
the  contours  of  the  city,  the  only  line  in  which  a  wall 
of  fortification  could  have  been  run,  and  in  point  of 
fact  we  can  now  trace  the  line  of  the  wall  at  this  point 
by  its  moat,  largely  occupied  to-day  by  cisterns. 

We  know  also  perhaps  where  the  Praetorium  was, 
although  that  is  still  disputed.    By  the  Ecce  Homo 


196  Bible  and  Spade 

arch,  near  the  beginning  of  the  Via  Dolorosa,  stands 
the  school  and  convent  of  the  Sisters  of  Zion.  When 
the  builders  were  excavating  for  the  erection  of  that 
convent,  they  found  that  the  Ecce  Homo  arch  which 
spans  the  street  was  part  of  a  Roman  triumphal  arch, 
built  presumably  in  Hadrian's  day,  close  to  the  gov- 
ernment house  or  Praetorium.  That  Prsetorium  had 
been  built  on  the  site  of  the  older  Prsetorium  of  our 
Lord's  day,  presumably  on  its  general  lines,  utilizing 
much  of  its  old  pavements,  foundations,  and  material. 
Away  down  underneath  the  House  of  the  Sisters  of 
Zion  was  found  one  of  these  pavements,  which  the 
sisters  have  reverently  preserved,  a  gabbatha,  an  open 
paved  space  or  court  of  the  government  house,  very 
likely  unchanged  since  our  Lord's  time.  There,  traced 
on  the  ground  by  the  soldiers,  you  may  find  the  boards 
for  their  gambling  games.  Gethsemane  also  is  ap- 
proximately identified,  and  the  house  of  the  Last 
Supper;  and  the  present  visitor  to  Jerusalem  who  is 
intelligently  informed  can  pretty  well  restore  a  good 
deal  of  the  city  of  our  Lord's  time,  enough  at  least  to 
make  the  references  in  the  Gospels  thoroughly  intelli- 
gible. 

Old  Jerusalem  was  a  city  of  two  great  hills,  divided 
into  seven  smaller  ones,  with  deep  valleys  between. 
To-day  it  looks  almost  like  a  plain,  but  he  who  has 
followed  these  excavations,  standing  on  a  height,  will 
s^e  the  traces  of  the  old  hills  and  valleys,  and  if  he  has 
used  the  various  maps  and  casts  which  are  now  availa- 
ble, the  ordnance  surveys  and  reports,  the  debris  will 
vanish  from  his  sight,  and  he  will  see  the  deep  clefts, 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  197 

the  high  hills,  and  the  steep  streets  of  our  Lord's  time, 
and  even  earlier,  to  the  time  of  David. 

What  is  true  of  Jerusalem  is  true  to  some  extent  of 
the  remainder  of  Palestine.  Nazareth  was  very  disap- 
pointing to  me  in  my  earlier  visits.  I  used  to  go,  as  I 
suppose  others  did,  to  the  fountain  in  the  town  and  try 
to  imagine  Mary  drawing  water  there  and  the  child 
Jesus  by  her  side,  but  somehow  it  did  not  seem  natural, 
and  on  the  whole  I  got  little  satisfaction  out  of  Naza- 
reth. This  time  I  resolved  to  go  and  study  it  as  I  had 
been  studying  Jerusalem.  I  suppose  I  should  have 
known,  but  I  did  not,  that  that  modern  fountain,  a 
shabby,  squalid  thing,  is  a  recent  Turkish  construction 
and  no  fountain  at  all.  The  water  is  supplied  to  it  by 
iron  pipes  carried  underground.  We  know  now  that 
the  real  fountain  was  two  or  three  hundred  feet  up 
the  valley,  at  the  foot  of  the  real  hill,  beneath  a  great 
mass  of  debris.  There  there  was  a  cave,  from  which 
the  water  used  to  issue,  the  same  water  which  is  now 
brought  by  pipes  underground  to  the  fountain  which 
you  are  shown  as  the  fountain  from  which  Mary  drew 
her  water.  Under  the  Franciscans'  buildings  you  will 
find  some  excavations,  from  a  study  of  which  and  of 
the  excavations  under  the  house  of  the  Sisters  of 
Saint  Joseph,  near  by,  you  will  be  able  to  understand 
a  little  better  what  the  old  Nazareth  was  like;  for  the 
present  town,  as  far  as  it  is  not  well  up  on  the  hill, 
stands  fifteen  to  thirty  feet  above  old  Nazareth.  One 
thing  that  pleased  me  on  my  last  visit  was  to  find  that 
we  can  pretty  accurately  locate  the  point  where  they 
would  have  thrown  Jesus  down  the  rocks. 


198  Bible  and  Spade 

Of  Shechem  the  same  is  true.  Old  Shechem  is  buried 
deep  below  the  ground.  It  was  only  on  my  last  visit 
to  Palestine,  and  then  not  until  I  had  gone  time  and 
time  again  to  Shechem,  that  I  learned  what  and  where 
Shechem  really  was,  and  came  to  realize  its  immense 
importance  in  early  Hebrew  story.  I  may  not  detain 
you  longer  with  this  sort  of  vague  statements  of  the 
things  which  we  have  learned.  I  have  sought  to  bring 
before  your  mind  the  fact  that  while  excavations  may 
have  seemed  to  be  unsatisfactory  in  material  results, 
and  while  we  have  been  disappointed  in  not  finding 
ancient  Hebrew  remains — and,  in  fact,  the  Hebrews 
never  were  a  building  people  and  in  material  civiliza- 
tion they  always  lingered  far  behind — nevertheless, 
we  have  obtained  a  very  large  amount  of  information 
about  the  Palestine  of  all  periods.  We  have  been  able, 
even  without  inscriptions,  to  secure  a  very  fair  record 
of  its  history,  and  the  Bible,  Old  and  New  Testaments 
alike,  has  assumed  a  new  meaning  in  many  of  its  parts 
as  a  result  of  modern  exploration  and  study  of  the 
Holy  Land. 

On  my  first  visit  to  Shechem  I  was  not  in  a  position 
to  perceive  that  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  was  in  its 
origin  the  law  book  of  Shechem,  and  that  those  Psalms 
which  we  know  as  the  "  Prayers  of  David  son  of  Jesse  " 
were  the  hymn-book  of  the  old  temple  of  Shechem  on 
Mount  Gerizzim.  The  68th  Psalm  makes  this  very 
clear  by  its  local  allusions,  as  in  the  passage  looking 
down  from  the  top  of  Gerizzim  to  Jacob's  well  be- 
neath. In  verses  26-28  are  enumerated  the  people 
who  have  gathered  at  the  high  altar  on  Mount  Geriz- 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  199 

zim  for  the  feast,  and  first  of  all  the  people  from  the 
well: 

26.  "  In  the  congregations  they  have  blessed  God, 

The  Lord  from  the  well  of  Israel." 

Shechem  itself  is  the  congregation  of  Gerizzim,  the 
centre  of  Joseph  and  Israel,  down  there  at  the  foot  of 
the  mountain,  by  the  well  of  Jacob. 

Next  we  have  the  southern  tribes,  coming  in  pro- 
cession to  the  festival  in  central  Israel: 

27.  "  There  is  little  Benjamin  bringing  them  down, 

The  princes  of  Judah  their  leaders"; 

and  finally  the  tribes  from  the  north: 

"Princes  of  Zebulun,  princes  of  Naphtali." 

On  Mount  Gerizzim  stood  in  the  old  Israelite  times  the 
temple  of  which  the  temple  of  the  Samaritans  became 
later  the  heretical  successor.  This  was  not  a  temple 
with  bulls,  like  those  at  Dan  and  Bethel,  but  a  temple 
where  the  law  was  set  up  inscribed  on  pillars.  We 
have  the  account  of  this  in  the  twenty-seventh  chapter 
of  Deuteronomy,  but  I  had  failed  to  see  this  before, 
because  I  had  not  studied  these  things  on  the  spot 
with  eyes  opened  by  the  discoveries  of  recent  date. 

Clearly  as,  in  the  account  of  the  dedication  of  Solo- 
mon's temple,  I  Kings  8,  or  of  David's  bringing  in 
of  the  Ark,  II  Sam.  6,  the  annual  temple  festivals  in 
commemoration  of  those  events  are  described  in  the 
story  of  those  events,  so  here  the  temple  on  Gerizzim 
is  described  in  Deut.  27  under  the  form  of  Moses'  com- 


200  Bible  and  Spade 

mandment  for  its  erection.  In  our  Masoretic  text 
it  is  Ebal  (v.  4)  on  which  the  pillars  of  the  law  are 
to  be  erected.  This  is  quite  inconsistent  with  verse  13, 
and  scholars  are  agreed  that  the  Samaritan  Hebrew 
text  of  verse  4  is  the  correct  text,  namely  Gerizzim. 
Evidently  there  was  a  tendenz  change  in  the  Masoretic 
text,  directed  against  the  Samaritans.  We  have  a 
similar  tendenz  change  directed  against  the  Christians 
in  Isaiah  7 :  14.  In  this  ancient  Christian  proof  text 
our  present  Hebrew  Bibles  have,  "the  young  woman" 
instead  of  "the  virgin,"  as  quoted  by  Saint  Matthew 
(1 :  21),  supported  by  the  independent  authority  of 
Saint  Luke.  The  sense  of  the  passage  requires  virgin, 
which  appears  in  the  almost  parallel  passage,  Micah 
4:8-10.  The  Greek  and  Syriac  versions  of  Isaiah 
both  have  "the  virgin."  Saint  Matthew,  apparently, 
does  not  quote  from  the  Greek,  from  which  he  dif- 
fers in  detail,  but  either  from  the  Hebrew  of  his  day 
or  from  an  Aramaic  Targum.  The  present  Targum, 
however,  agrees  with  the  Masoretic  Hebrew,  and  Jerome 
found  the  same  Hebrew  text  which  we  now  have. 
Pretty  clearly  up  to  about  150  A.  D.  the  Hebrew  t  ixt 
read  "the  virgin,"  which  was  later  changed,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  sense,  to  "young  woman,"  out  of  tendenz 
against  the  use  of  the  passage  by  Christians.1 

In  concluding  this  lecture  I  wish  to  £ay  that  with 
the  abolition  of  the  Turkish  Government  and  the  intro- 
duction of  British  control  the  great  opportunity  has 
come  for  a  thorough  exploration  of  the  country.  Al- 
ready the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  has  commenced 
1  Cf.  Peters,  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Scholarship. 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  201 

the  excavation  of  Ashkelon,  the  old  Philistine  city 
on  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  Jews  have 
commenced  work  at  Tiberias;  the  Dominican  Fathers 
are  exploring  the  site  of  Ain  Duk  in  the  Jordan  valley, 
near  Jericho,  where  during  the  war  a  mosaic  floor  of  an 
interesting  Jewish  synagogue,  perhaps  of  Herod's  time, 
perhaps  later,  was  laid  bare  by  the  explosion  of  a  shell. 
The  University  of  Pennsylvania  is  excavating  Beisan, 
the  ancient  Beth  Shean,  and  Scythopolis.  The  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago  has  obtained  the  concession  for  Me- 
giddo,  and  Harvard  for  Samaria. 

I  have  said  that  we  have  not  heretofore  found  much 
of  Hebrew  remains.  Previous  excavations  have  never 
been  conducted  to  a  finish.  Bliss  did  a  little  at  Lachish, 
Harvard  a  little  at  Samaria;  but  no  excavations  were 
completed.  The  obstacles  were  too  great;  and  the 
support  was  too  small.  Perhaps,  too,  our  knowledge 
was  not  sufficient.  Moreover  the  sites  chosen  were 
ordinarily  not  sites  of  the  greatest  importance  and 
interest  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Bible  story. 
They  were  places  on  the  border-land,  and  not  the  true 
homes  of  the  Israelites.  Perhaps  that  is  one  reason 
why  we  have  not  found  those  Bible  remains  which 
are  what  most  of  us  believe  to  be  the  most  important 
things  to  be  sought  for.  From  what  little  we  have 
yet  found  it  would  seem,  as  I  have  said,  as  though  the 
Hebrew  always  stood  far  behind  in  material  civiliza- 
tion. They  were  no  builders.  They  left  few  records 
in  the  form  of  inscriptions.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
country  before  their  time  had  done  great  rock-cutting, 
and  had  built  great  cities,  which  the  Hebrews  took 


202  Bible  and  Spade 

possession  of.  When  the  Hebrews  came  in,  building 
deteriorated,  pottery  degenerated.  With  Herod  we 
come  to  a  period  of  wonderful  activity  in  building.  He 
was  one  of  the  great  builders  of  the  world,  who  has  left 
his  remains  everywhere  in  Palestine  and  in  many  places 
outside.  The  Christian  Byzantine  period,  from  the 
time  of  Constantine  to  the  Arabic  conquest,  was  an- 
other period  of  great  cultural  activity.  The  numerous 
mosaics  which  have  been  found  in  Palestine,  including 
the  great  Madeba  map,  are  from  this  period.  With 
the  Crusades  was  inaugurated  another  period  of  mag- 
nificent buildings.  All  these  periods  need  an  investi- 
gation which  they  have  not  yet  received,  but  the 
period  of  chief  importance  for  the  history  of  religion 
and  civilization  is  that  Israelitic-Jewish  period  from 
which  we  have  as  yet  discovered  so  little. 

The  two  most  available  and  promising  sites  for  He- 
brew discoveries  are  Zion  and  Samaria.  David's  city, 
on  the  hill  of  Ophel,  southward  of  the  modern  city  walls, 
is  at  present  unbuilt,  as  is  part  of  the  western  hill  op- 
posite across  the  Tyropoeon  valley.  These  should  be 
excavated  at  once.  The  present  opportunity  may  else 
be  lost.  Next  to  these  in  importance  is  Samaria, 
already  partly  excavated  by  Harvard.  In  Samaria 
explorers  found  Ahab's  palace,  a  well-built  structure,  in 
which  also  were  discovered,  as  already  stated,  some 
records.  I  think  that  perhaps  if  we  could  thoroughly 
explore  Zion  and  Samaria,  perhaps  also  Gibeon,  She- 
chem,  Hebron,  Dan,  and  Bethel,  we  might  find  our 
present  conclusion  that  the  Hebrews  left  little  behind 
them  in  part,  at  least,  reversed.    At  all  events  it  is  in 


The  Exploration  of  Palestine  203 

such  sites  that  we  may  hope  to  find  real  Hebrew  and 
Israelite  material,  and  for  us  Americans  there  is  now  a 
great  opportunity  to  excavate  those  places,  if  only  the 
money  may  be  provided.  We  have  our  American 
School  of  Oriental  Research  in  Jerusalem  as  the  basis 
of  such  work.  We  have  scholars  already  trained  under 
whom  such  work  could  be  skilfully  conducted.  We 
are  personam  grata?  with  the  British  Government  and 
the  natives  alike.  If  only  we  could  now  find  generous 
men  and  women  who,  having  at  heart  the  promotion 
of  the  study  of  the  Bible,  would  give  the  funds  for  such 
work,  there  is  almost  a  certainty  that  we  Americans 
could  throw  a  vastly  greater  light  on  the  Bible  by 
excavation  at  one  or  more  of  the  sites  named  than  has 
come  from  all  the  work  done  in  Palestine  heretofore, 
and  as  America  began  the  work  of  exploration  in  Pales- 
tine, it  would  certainly  be  a  fit  achievement  if  America 
might  carry  it  to  high-water  mark. 


VI 

NEW  TESTAMENT  TIMES 

The  New  Testament,  and  especially  the  book  of 
Acts,  makes  us  aware  of  the  great  prevalence  of  magical 
beliefs  and  practices  in  the  first  Christian  century,  and 
also  of  the  role  which  the  Jews  played  as  magicians, 
a  role  which  continued  on  until  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
our  excavations  at  Nippur  we  discovered  a  Jewish 
settlement  from  the  houses  of  which  we  took  a  large 
number  of  magical  bowls.  Our  excavations  also  re- 
vealed from  older  periods  a  considerable  number  of 
Babylonian  exorcisms  and  magical  formula?,  more  of 
which  have  been  found  at  other  places  in  Babylonia  and 
in  Ashur-bani-pal's  library  at  Nineveh.  From  these 
it  would  appear  that  the  old  Sumerians  had  reduced 
magic  to  a  pseudoscience,  and  their  magical  texts  in 
the  Sumerian  tongue,  which,  like  the  Latin  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  was  supposed  to  be  especially  efficacious,  were 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  occa- 
sionally with  a  translation  attached.  The  main  prin- 
ciples of  this  magic  are  the  same  with  which  we  are 
familiar  from  the  study  of  magic  in  other  times  and 
countries,  but  here  it  was  reduced  to  a  science.  In 
some  cases  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  a  particular  text  is 
to  be  regarded  as  a  magical  text  or  as  a  religious  ritual. 
Both  proceed  somewhat  on  the  same  principle,  of  the 
existence  of  innumerable  demons  who  find  occasion 

204 


New  Testament  Time*  205 

to  enter  into  men's  bodies  or  to  obtain  control  over 
them.  This  control  may  be  manifested  by  some  form 
of  calamity  to  the  man  or  his  possessions,  or  by  bodily 
illness.  In  either  case  the  demons  must  be  exorcised. 
Now  this  exorcism  may  be  a  white  magic  or  a  black 
magic,  that  is,  it  may  be  conducted  legitimately  by 
priests  with  church  rites,  or  illegitimately  by  sorcerers 
with  rites  of  a  different  character.  In  the  fourth  and 
following  chapters  of  the  book  of  Leviticus,  we  have  a 
series  of  rituals  of  atonement  for  evil  caused  by  witting 
or  unwitting  violations  of  ritual  or  moral  law.  We 
have  from  the  library  of  Ashur-bani-pal  at  Nineveh  a 
series  of  tablets  called  shurpu,  a  great  part  of  which 
are  devoted  to  the  removal  by  a  proper  atonement  of 
the  mamit,  that  is  the  ban  or  calamity  which  has  come 
upon  the  man  because  wittingly  or  unwittingly  he  has 
broken  divine  laws.  The  words  for  atonement  in  the 
Assyrian  text  and  the  Hebrew  Scripture  are  identical, 
kipper  and  kuppur,  and  in  fact  the  whole  principle  of 
the  ritual  is  identical.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
liturgies  to  accompany  the  rituals,  of  which  we  have  a 
number  in  our  book  of  Psalms.  We  have  also  Assyrian 
tablets  which  tell  us  what  the  mamit  was,  showing  the 
causes  which  brought  sickness  and  calamity  on  a  man, 
and  they  are  practically  identical  in  Assyria  and  in 
Jerusalem.  That  being  the  case,  we  need  not  be  sur- 
prised if  we  find  the  black  magic  also  substantially 
identical. 

It  was  the  systematic  form  in  which  this  Sumerian 
magic  was  developed  which  caused  it  to  influence  in  a 
peculiar  degree  the  magic  of  surrounding  and  related 


206  Bible  and  Spade 

countries,  so  that  its  principles  and  methods  have 
passed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  in  fact, 
even  to  our  time.  One  of  the  fundamental  principles 
of  magic  as  it  shows  itself  in  the  old  Sumerian  texts,  is 
the  power  that  lies  in  the  knowledge  of  the  name.  To 
know  the  name  gives  power  over  or  through  the  being 
which  that  name  expresses.  In  attacking  the  power 
of  evil,  the  magician  must  call  to  his  aid  some  divine 
authority  to  support  him  in  his  combat.  This  aid  is 
generally  known  as  the  Word  of  Power,  and  in  its  sim- 
ple form  is  the  name  of  some  divine  being  or  thing. 
Hear  a  part  of  one  of  the  inscriptions  found  on  the 
bowls  in  the  Jewish  houses  at  Nippur,  placed  as  a  rule 
under  the  threshold,  the  intent  of  which  was  to  imprison 
evil  spirits  and  hold  them  beneath  the  threshold  by 
exorcisms,  that  they  might  not  harm  the  house  or  its 
inhabitants.  Such  bowls  properly  provided  with  incan- 
tations by  the  right  sort  of  magicians  should  not  only 
protect  against  evil,  but  also  insure  all  sorts  of  pros- 
perity to  the  family  within.  "A  remedy  from  heaven 
to  Darbah,  son  of  Asasarieh,  and  for  Shadkoi,  daughter 
of  Dada,  his  wife,  for  their  sons  and  daughters,  their 
houses  and  possessions;  that  they  may  have  children,' 
and  that  these  live  and  be  preserved  from  Shedim  and 
Daevas,  from  Shubhte  and  Satans — from  curses,  night 
demons  and  destruction  which  have  been  prepared  for 
them."  Then  the  charm  adjures  an  angel  who  is 
"come  down  from  heaven,"  who  has  "command  in 
the  East  over  the  secrets  of  the  Almighty,"  to  preserve 
them.  Then  follows  the  ban  or  curse  on  all  sorts  of 
evils,  some  of  them  personified  by  names  of  demons, 


New  Testament  Times  207 

some  of  them  mentioned  simply  as  "troubles,  cursing, 
laceration,  calamity,  ban,  curse";  and  finally  this  charm 
is  made  applicable  to  "their  houses  and  possessions" 
and  "everything  which  may  be  theirs,"  and  the  whole 
ends  thus:  "By  means  of  this  we  loosen  their  hold 
from  this  day  and  forever.  In  the  name  of  Yahaweh 
of  Hosts  I  Amen !  Amen !  Selah !  May  Yahaweh,  by 
this,  preserve  him  from  every  Ashmodai  of  his  soul." 
Here  the  sorcerer  has  used  the  greatest  of  all  names, 
in  which  he  is  very  orthodox,  albeit  at  that  time  the 
name  Yahaweh  was  a  secret,  mystic  name  for  the  deity, 
forbidden  the  ordinary  man.  We  find  frequently  cu- 
rious compound  names  used  and  unintelligible  names 
made  up  to  represent  extraordinary  demons,  which  by 
the  power  of  black  magic  are  to  be  made  to  serve  for  a 
good  purpose,  but  the  sure  name,  which  is  above  all 
other  names,  is  that  mysterious,  forbidden  name  of 
the  God  of  the  Jews,  Yahaweh.  This  is  the  most 
powerful  name  by  which  a  man  may  conjure  everything 
in  heaven  and  on  earth,  before  which  everything  must 
bow.  This  was  to  the  Jews  the  great  Word  of  Power. 
The  Christians  transferred  this  to  Jesus  Christ  as  the 
expression  of  that  divine  power  to  which  the  world  of 
spirits  is  subject.  So  Saint  Paul  writes:  "At  the  name 
of  Jesus,  every  knee  shall  bow,  in  heaven  and  on  earth 
and  under  the  earth."  (Phil.  2 :  10.)  So  in  that  early 
Aramaic  document  which  Saint  Luke  has  translated 
or  adapted  in  the  first  part  of  the  book  of  Acts,  the 
apostles  are  represented  as  overcoming  all  the  powers 
of  evil  spirits  possessing  men  with  disease  by  that 
name  (Acts  4: 10):  "By  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of 


208  Bible  and  Spade 

Nazareth,  doth  this  man  appear  before  you  whole." 
It  was  by  the  power  of  his  name  that  the  evil  spirit  of 
disease  was  cast  out. 

Perhaps  the  most  common  form  of  magic  the  world 
over  is  that  known  as  sympathetic.  A  familiar  ex- 
ample of  sympathetic  magic,  of  which  every  one  has 
heard,  is  the  melting  of  a  wax  figure  with  the  invocation 
of  a  curse  in  order  to  bring  evil  upon  some  one.  In 
one  of  the  early  Psalms  we  find  an  indication  of  a  some- 
what similar  practice  by  the  enemies  of  the  Israelites 
to  bring  evil  upon  Israel,  namely  the  secretion  on  Is- 
raelitic  soil  of  magic  figures;  and  in  Bliss's  excavations 
at  Marissa  there  were  found  a  number  of  lead  figures 
evidently  intended  to  be  used  for  a  similar  purpose. 
This  principle  of  sympathetic  magic  was  used  freely 
in  Sumerian  practice  in  the  healing  of  disease.  A  pig 
or  a  kid  was  placed  by  or  upon  the  sick  person  and  the 
demon  of  disease  exorcised  out  of  the  body  of  the  sick 
man  into  the  animal.  Here  is  an  exorcism  to  be  used 
in  such  cases:  "Give  the  pig  in  his  stead,  and  give  the 
flesh  as  his  flesh,  the  blood  as  his  blood,  and  let  him 
take  it;  its  heart  (which  thou  hast  set  on  his  heart) 
give  as  his  heart,  and  let  him  take  it."  One  is  re- 
minded strikingly  of  the  devils  which  went  into  the 
herd  of  swine  in  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes,  that 
most  peculiar  miracle  of  the  New  Testament,  recorded 
in  Saint  Mark's  Gospel,  on  the  authority  presumably 
of  Saint  Peter,  and  taken  over  from  Saint  Mark  by 
Saint  Luke  and  Saint  Matthew. 

It  must  be  recognized  that  the  early  Christians  did 
not  readily  free  themselves  from  these  old  magical 


New  Testament  Times  209 

conceptions.  Indeed,  we  know  too  well  that  the  old 
beliefs  in  witches  and  demons  and  magic  continued  to 
be  regarded  as  almost  an  essential  part  of  Christianity 
until  our  own  times,  and  the  most  holy  things  in  the 
Christian  religion,  its  sacraments  and  its  creeds,  were 
regularly  used  as  magical  formulae.  MacAlister  in 
excavating  at  Gezer  found  little  magical  plates,  one  of 
them  in  the  form  of  a  bird,  made  to  contain  a  sacred 
wafer  of  the  Eucharist;  and  we  know  from  the  writings 
of  the  early  Christian  fathers,  men  as  great  and  as 
holy  as  Saint  Basil,  how  Christians  used  these.  Basil 
tells  us  that  when  he  first  celebrated  the  communion  as 
a  priest,  he  put  aside  one  portion  of  the  wafer  to  be 
kept  through  life,  that  it  might  go  down  into  the  grave 
with  him.  It  was  a  charm.  Baptism  was  used  in 
the  same  way,  as  we  learn  from  Tertullian,  and  possibly 
that  mysterious  passage  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the 
First  Epistle  of  Saint  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  (v.  29) : 
"Why  are  we  then  baptized  for  the  dead,"  may  refer 
to  this  same  magical  use  of  baptism,  which  was  ulti- 
mately condemned  by  the  Church. 

Here  is  a  curious  Christian  prayer  or  magical  formu- 
la found  on  a  piece  of  papyrus  in  Egypt,  now  in  the 
museum  at  Gizeh:  "I  call  on  Thee,  God  of  the  Heavens 
and  God  of  the  earth  and  God  of  the  .  .  .  saints,  the 
fulness  of  the  world — who  came  into  the  world,  and 
has  broken  the  claws  of  Charon;  who  came  through 
Gabriel  into  the  womb  of  Mary  the  Virgin;  who  was 
born  in  Bethlehem,  and  brought  up  in  Nazareth;  who 
was  crucified — ;  through  whom  the  veil  of  the  temple 
was  rent;  who  rose  from  the  dead  in  the  grave  on  the 


210  Bible  and  Spade 

third  day  of  death,  appeared  in  Galilee,  and  ascended 
to  the  highest  of  the  heavens;  and  who  has  upon  His 
left  myriads  of  myriads  of  angel  hosts,  likewise  at  his 
right  myriads  of  myriads  of  angel  hosts,  who  cry  out 
with  one  voice  thrice  'Holy,  holy  is  the  King  of  the 
world/  through  whose  Godhead  the  heavens  were  sated; 
who  takes  His  way  on  the  paths  of  the  winds."  So  far 
you  might  think  this  to  be  some  liturgical  form  of  creed, 
and  indeed  it  testifies  to  the  way  in  which  creeds  were 
used  and  sung  through  all  those  early  days  of  the 
Church,  and  shows  us  how  early  those  creeds  really  are. 
But  the  following  part  is  a  prayer  or  incantation  ad- 
dressed to  Jesus,  who  has  shown  his  power  over  all  the 
universe,  who  is  "ascended  into  the  seventh  heaven," 
"the  Blessed  Lamb,"  who  has  overcome  all  the  enemies 
of  man,  "through  whose  blood  the  souls  were  freed," 
"who  broke  the  iron  bars,  who  set  free  those  that  were 
bound  in  darkness,  who  made  Charon  without  seed; 
who  bound  the  rebellious  foe,"  to  release  him  over  whom 
this  exorcism  of  prayer  is  recited  from  the  spirits  of 
disease,  whether  "an  unclean  spirit  or  a  possession  of 
a  demon  in  the  midday  hours,  whether  they  be  ague  or 
fever,  or  fever  and  ague,  or  injury  from  men  or  powers 
of  the  adversary,  may  they  not  prevail  against  the 
image,  because  it  was  formed  from  the  hand  of  Thy 
godhead — for  Thine  is  the  power — of  the  world,  which 
ruleth  forever." 

Egypt  has  furnished  us  with  innumerable  surprises. 
In  my  former  lectures  I  have  tried  to  show  how  some 
of  those  bear  on  Old  Testament  story.  We  have  from 
Egypt  few  texts  and  inscriptions  which  we  can  directly 


New  Testament  Times  211 

correlate  with  the  Bible,  as  we  can  do  in  the  case  of 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian  inscriptions,  but  we  have,  on 
the  other  hand,  an  immense  amount  of  material  which 
throws  a  most  valuable  side-light  on  whole  periods. 
From  Egypt  novels  and  stories  have  come  down  to 
us,  to  one  or  two  of  which  I  have  made  allusion;  as 
for  instance  the  story  of  the  fugitive,  about  2000  B.  C, 
who  took  refuge  in  the  ancient  land  of  Lot,  from  which 
we  obtain  an  idea  of  the  general  conditions  of  that 
country  some  800  years  before  the  Hebrew  conquest. 
I  referred  also  to  that  travel  story  of  the  official  who, 
in  the  time  of  Judges,  went  to  Palestine,  Phoenicia, 
and  Cyprus  to  get  wood  of  Lebanon  for  his  royal  mas- 
ter. We  have  also  the  story  of  the  Two  Brothers, 
which  is  so  strikingly  similar  in  many  of  its  features 
to  the  story  of  Joseph,  and  especially  of  his  tempta- 
tion by  Potiphar's  wife.  We  have  further  a  number 
of  magical  stories,  in  which  a  great  black  magician 
plays  a  wonderful  part,  and  that  same  black  magician 
we  find  figuring  much  later  in  European  tales,  the 
stories  of  Charlemagne's  paladins,  and  of  Arthur's 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table.  I  spoke  of  the  four  hun- 
dred or  so  clay  tablets  found  at  Amarna,  letters  from 
the  kings  and  governors  of  Babylonia,  Assyria,  Mesopo- 
tamia, Syria,  and  Palestine,  revealing  the  political 
conditions  of  hither  Asia  at  the  time  when  the  ancestors 
of  the  Hebrews  were  beginning  to  press  into  Canaan; 
of  the  discovery  of  an  extraordinary  mass  of  Aramaean 
documents  from  a  Jewish  temple  at  Elephantine,  the 
modern  Jeb,  on  the  upper  Nile,  archives  of  a  Jewish 
military  colony  established  there  probably  as  early  as 


212  Bible  and  Spade 

the  time  of  Jeremiah;  the  letters  themselves,  however, 
dating  from  about  400  B.  C.  They  not  only  throw 
light  on  the  conditions  of  the  colony  itself,  its  unpopu- 
larity among  the  Egyptians,  as  the  Jews  seem  always 
to  have  been  unpopular,  but  also  on  the  attitude  of 
the  Persian  Government  toward  the  foreign  religions  at 
that  period,  and  on  conditions  in  Palestine  at  the  time 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  and  Sanballat.  Almost  revolu- 
tionary in  its  bearing  on  our  theories  of  the  religious 
developments  of  the  Jews  is  the  evidence  those  docu- 
ments brought  of  the  temple  at  Jeb,  and  the  worship 
of  Yahu  in  various  temples  without  prejudice  at  almost 
the  time  of  Ezra.  But  most  wonderful  of  all,  and  most 
important  in  their  results,  have  been  the  discoveries 
of  papyri,  with  which  we  may  combine  also  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  written  ostraka  or  potsherds. 

The  first  great  discovery  of  papyri  was  made  at 
Oxyrhynchus  in  1897,  in  a  rubbish  heap  of  that  old 
town  in  the  Fayum  in  Egypt.  Those  rubbish  heaps 
were  full  of  old  books,  old  records,  and  old  documents 
that  had  been  thrown  out.1  It  was  as  though  we  of  to- 
day were  to  discover  a  rubbish  heap  containing  all 
the  scraps  of  paper  which  some  small  town  had  dis- 
carded since  the  discovery  of  America.  Of  course 
they  were  in  a  bad  condition,  many  illegible,  many 
rotting  away,  but  by  wonderful  patience  and  persis- 
tence thousands  of  them  have  been  detached,  unrolled, 
and  deciphered.    Oxyrhynchus  was  the  first  town  in 

1  These  discoveries  were  especially  the  work  of  Grenfell  and 
Hunt,  and  it  is  more  particularly  from  the  texts  discovered  and 
published  by  them  that  I  have  drawn. 


New  Testament  Times  213 

which  papyri  were  found  in  any  numbers,  but  since 
1897  discoveries  have  been  made  in  other  places  also, 
and  not  only  in  the  towns  of  the  Fayum,  but  even  in 
Alexandria.  One  of  the  very  amusing  and  yet  very 
important  of  these  discoveries  was  made,  as  such  dis- 
coveries often  are,  by  a  curious  chance.  You  know  how 
the  Egyptians  honored  animals,  mummified  them  and 
buried  them  in  cemeteries.  There  have  been  found 
cemeteries  of  crocodiles,  cats,  monkeys,  sacred  birds, 
bulls.  In  digging  for  inscriptions  at  one  place  the 
explorers  came  across  a  number  of  mummified  croco- 
diles. One  digger,  in  disgust  with  his  bad  luck  in  bring- 
ing up  time  after  time  only  crocodiles,  which  would 
bring  him  no  reward,  whereas  a  little  sheet  of  papy- 
rus would  have  brought  him  a  present,  seized  a  croco- 
dile that  he  had  dug  up  and  in  indignation  smashed 
him  to  pieces.  Lo  and  behold!  It  was  stuffed  full 
of  papyri.    A  precious  find  I 

These  papyri  date  from  two  or  three  centuries  B.  C. 
onward  to  the  time  of  the  Arabic  conquest.  They  con- 
tain material  of  every  possible  description — fragments 
of  ancient  classical  books  (indeed,  through  them  we 
have  recovered  some  classics  which  were  lost),  frag- 
ments of  the  Greek  Old  Testament,  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, of  Christian  books  of  which  we  had  never  heard 
before,  among  others  unknown  Gospels,  and  collec- 
tions of  the  sayings  of  Christ,  old  church  liturgies, 
prayers,  some  of  them  very  beautiful,  magical  formulae, 
domestic  and  family  letters,  official  archives — and  I 
might  prolong  the  list  indefinitely.  The  discovery  of 
these  has  revolutionized  the  study  of  the  New  Testa- 


214  Bible  and  Spade 

ment.  It  has  shown  us,  to  begin  with,  that  the  lan- 
guage in  which  the  New  Testament  was  written  was 
the  common,  spoken  language  of  the  people  of  the 
eastern  part  of  the  Roman  empire  by  the  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean  in  the  centuries  just  before  and  after 
Christ,  not  a  peculiar  and  corrupt  form  of  old  classical 
Greek  written  by  a  few  ignorant  men  whose  normal 
language  was  Aramaean,  and  that  it  is  not  to  be  inter- 
preted on  the  basis  of  the  old  classical  Greek  grammars 
and  dictionaries  entirely.  I  have  had  to  scrap  all  my 
New  Testament  grammars  and  dictionaries,  and  new 
ones  built  on  the  evidence  of  this  great  mass  of  ostraka 
and  papyri  documents  are  appearing  almost  every  day. 
This  has  thrown  much  light  on  many  passages  in  the 
New  Testament  about  the  exact  meaning  of  which 
there  had  been  dispute.  It  has  done  another  thing. 
It  has  given  us  a  method  of  dating  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament  books  which  did  not  exist  before.  We 
have  now  a  mass  of  writings  covering  a  number  of 
centuries,  and  by  comparison  of  the  New  Testament 
writings  with  the  documents  from  these  different  cen- 
turies we  can  reach  conclusions  as  to  date  which  were 
impossible  before.  In  a  former  lecture  I  pointed  out 
that  the  tendency  of  modern  New  Testament  criticism 
had  been  toward  a  return  to  conservatism  and  to  tra- 
ditional dates.  That  has  been  in  very  great  part  due 
to  the  discovery  of  these  documents  and  the  study  of 
the  New  Testament  in  comparison  with  them.  To-day 
most  New  Testament  scholars  hold  that  all  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  except  perhaps  II  Peter,  must 
be  dated  in  the  first  Christian  century,  that  is  sub- 


Photograph  by  Prof.  W.  A.  Shelton. 

Enclosing  wall  of  old  Temple  area  in  Jerusalem. 

A  chance  excavation  for  building  purposes  revealed  this  wall  to  a 
depth  of  seventy  feet. 


New  Testament  Times  215 

stantially  at  the  time  to  which  they  were  assigned  by 
Christian  tradition. 

One  argument  which  has  been  overdone  in  both 
Old  and  New  Testament  criticism  is  the  argument 
from  silence,  that  is  the  failure  of  a  document  to  make 
reference  to  events  occurring,  or  to  religious  ideas  or 
practices  prevailing  at  the  time  to  which  tradition 
assigns  that  document.  There  is,  of  course,  a  certain 
degree  of  validity  in  such  an  argument,  but  ordinarily 
its  value  is  small.  Probably  if  you  could  take  the 
family  letters  or  the  family  archives  of  your  grand- 
parents or  great-grandparents  who  lived  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution,  which  seems  to  you  so  stirring  a 
period,  you  would  find  very  little,  if  anything,  about  the 
Revolution,  no  references  to  Bunker  Hill,  or  Brandy- 
wine,  or  Saratoga.  It  you  were  to  take  the  hymns  or 
prayers  composed  during  that  period,  you  would  find 
that  the  hymns  did  not  sing  the  victories  of  Washing- 
ton or  his  defeats,  and  that  the  prayers  made  no  allu- 
sion to  those  events.  Out  of  the  great  mass  of  papyri 
from  Egypt,  it  is  surprising  how  few  contain  any  allu- 
sions to  important  political  or  even  economic  conditions 
of  the  period.  There  is  one  from  the  time  of  the  Jew- 
ish wars,  when  Vespasian  and  Titus  were  crushing  the 
Jewish  people,  which  is  an  exception  to  that  rule, 
and  it  is  such  a  very  human  document  that  I  must 
read  it  to  you.  This  woman's  husband  has  been  sent 
to  Palestine  to  take  part  in  some  capacity  in  the  Jewish 
war.  She  writes:  "I  am  constantly  sleepless,  filled 
night  and  day  with  the  one  anxiety  for  your  safety. 
Only  my  father's  attentions  kept  my  spirits  up,  and  on 


216  Bible  and  Spade 

New  Year's  Day  I  assure  you  I  should  have  gone  to 
bed  fasting  but  that  my  father  came  in  and  compelled 
me  to  eat.  I  implore  you,  therefore,  to  take  care  of 
yourself,  and  not  face  danger  without  a  guard;  but  just 
as  the  strategus  here  leaves  the  bulk  of  the  work  to 
the  magistrate,  you  do  the  same."  *  It  is  as  though 
she  cast  her  arms  about  his  neck  and  hung  on  him  to 
protect  him,  in  her  sweet  affection  making  him  power- 
less to  do  his  duty,  and  seeking  to  make  him  hold  his 
life  more  precious  than  his  honor. 

From  a  time  when  Rome  seemed  tottering  to  its 
fall,  when  the  emperor  had  been  captured,  when  the 
enemy  had  taken  Antioch,  not  so  far  away,  when  you 
would  suppose  that  the  bonds  of  society  were  being 
loosed  and  that  all  would  be  distress  and  disaster,  a 
certain  Allypius,  a  man  of  substance,  with  large  lands 
and  many  tenants,  writes  to  one  of  these  tenants  to 
announce  a  coming  visit.  By  God's  will  he  will  come 
on  the  twenty-third  of  January.  "As  soon  therefore 
as  you  receive  my  letter  have  the  bath  well  heated, 
ordering  logs  to  be  carried  for  it  and  collecting  chaff 
from  every  side  in  order  that  we  may  have  a  hot  bath 
this  wintry  weather;  for  we  have  determined  to  stay 
at  your  house,  since  we  are  going  to  inspect  the  other 
establishments  also  and  to  regulate  the  affairs  of  yours. 
Take  care  to  prepare  all  other  requisites  also,  above  all 
a  good  pig  for  our  companions;  but  see  that  it  is  a  good 
one,  not  a  lean,  useless  thing  like  last  time."  2    This 

1  H.  Idris  Bell,  "  The  Historical  Value  of  Greek  Papyri ";  Jour- 
nal of  Egyptian  Archceology,  Oct.,  1920. 


New  Testament  T lines  217 

• 
would  be  the  nature  of  your  grandparents'  letters 
from  the  Revolutionary  period,  if  you  could  recover 
them. 

Every-day  living  under  Roman  rule  must  have  been 
very  much  the  same  in  Palestine  as  in  Egypt,  and  from 
the  various  documents  of  these  rubbish  heaps  we  can 
reconstruct  a  most  vivid  and  detailed  picture  of  life 
in  Palestine  among  the  common  people  in  such  sites 
as  Nazareth  in  the  time  of  Jesus  and  of  the  Apostles. 

One  problem  which  the  early  Christian  had  to  face 
was  that  of  his  relation  to  heathen  rites,  heathen  sacri- 
fices, and  heathen  temple  services,  and  ultimately, 
beginning  in  64  A.  D.,  his  relation  to  the  worship  of 
the  deified  Roman  emperor,  which  was  the  test  of  his 
loyalty  to  the  state.  In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  the 
book  of  Revelation,  written,  I  suppose,  in  the  time  of 
Domitian,  81-96  A.  D.,  this  worship  of  the  Roman 
emperor  is  represented  under  the  form  of  the  Monster 
who  is  Nero  returned  in  the  shape  of  Domitian.  Those 
who  dwell  in  the  empire  are  told  that  they  shall  make 
an  image  to  this  beast  and  that  whosoever  will  not 
worship  the  image  of  the  beast  shall  be  killed.  All 
must  carry  (and  here  we  have  a  word,  charagma,  which 
from  the  papyri  it  now  appears  was  the  regular  word 
for  the  Roman  seal  or  stamp)  the  mark  of  the  Roman 
emperor  on  the  hand  or  forehead,  small  and  great, 
rich  and  poor,  free  and  bond,  and  no  man  may  pursue 
the  ordinary  avocations  of  life,  buying  or  selling,  unless 
he  have  that  mark.  A  man  did  well  to  have  what  was 
called  a  libellus,  an  affidavit,  certified  by  the  Roman 
authorities,  which  served  as  a  sort  of  passport  to  indi- 


218  Bible  and  Spade 

cate  to  all  men  everywhere  that  he  was  a  true  and  loyal 
subject.  Here  is  an  application  for  such  a  libellus, 
found  in  Oxyrynchus,  to  be  certified  in  behalf  of  a 
certain  Aurelius  by  the  superintendent  of  offerings 
and  sacrifices,  the  magistrate  entitled  to  issue  such 
documents:  "It  has  ever  been  my  custom  to  make 
sacrifices  and  libations  to  the  gods,  and  now  also  I 
have,  in  your  presence,  in  accordance  with  the  command 
poured  libations  and  sacrificed  and  tasted  the  offerings 
together  with  my  son  Aurelius  Dioseorus  and  my  daugh- 
ter, Aurelia  Lais.  I  therefore  request  you  to  certify 
to  my  statement." 

You  will  remember  the  questions  that  arose  with 
regard  to  the  heathen  sacrifices  in  Corinth  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Church,  with  which  Saint  Paul  had  to  deal; 
and  the  same  questions  are  dealt  with  in  the  Revela- 
tion of  Saint  John  the  Divine  in  the  letters  to  the  seven 
churches.  Some  said:  "After  all,  the  idols  are  nothing. 
Why  should  we  not  eat  meat  sacrificed  to  idols?" 
These  were  the  "emancipated."  They  were  poor,  and 
it  was  hard  to  get  meat  to  eat.  Inasmuch  as  idols 
were  nothing,  why  not  go  into  the  temples  and  eat 
the  meat  ?  So  likewise  in  the  time  of  persecutions  there 
were  plenty  of  Christians  who  were  ready  to  say  to 
themselves:  "These  idols  are  nothing.  Sacrificing  to 
the  idol  of  the  Emperor  is  only  an  empty  form.  It 
does  no  harm  to  me  and  it  will  save  my  life.  Why 
should  I  not  do  it?"  Many  of  those  who  sacrificed 
to  the  gods,  did  so,  not  with  an  actual  intention  of 
apostasy,  but  excusing  themselves  by  such  sophistical 
reasoning.    There  were  others,  and  they  became  quite 


New  Testament  Times  219 

numerous,  so  that  a  special  name,  libellarii,  was  created 
for  them,  who,  while  they  were  not  willing  to  sacrifice 
to  the  idol  of  the  emporor,  were  quite  willing  to  bribe 
the  officials  to  issue  a  libellus  or  certificate  that  they 
had  so  sacrificed.  Was  this  libellus  found  at  Oxyrhyn- 
chus  a  genuine  certificate,  and  does  it  mean  that  the 
Christian  Aurelius  who  procured  it  for  himself  and 
children  really  did  sacrifice;  or  did  he  bribe  the  superin- 
tendent of  offerings  and  sacrifice  to  give  him  a  certifi- 
cate that  he  had  sacrificed,  when  he  had  not,  thus  com- 
mitting one  sin  in  order  to  avoid  committing  another, 
which  he  regarded  as  still  more  heinous  ?  We  have  no 
means  of  knowing. 

Another  question  which  exercised  the  early  Church, 
as  you  can  see  from  Saint  Paul's  letters  from  Rome, 
the  letter  to  Philemon  about  his  runaway  slave  Onesi- 
mus,  and  his  words  about  the  attitude  of  believers 
toward  slaves  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  will  show 
you  how  vital,  and  how  perplexing  a  question  this  slave 
question  was.  Not  a  few  of  the  fragments  of  papyri 
found  in  Egypt  have  to  do  with  slaves.  Here  is  a 
document  asking  for  the  public  auction  of  a  two-thirds 
right  in  a  male  slave.  This  slave  belonged,  originally, 
to  a  brother  and  three  minor  half-brothers.  The  first 
owned  one-third  of  the  slave  and  the  three  younger 
brothers  jointly  the  other  two-thirds.  The  older 
brother  emancipated  his  third  of  the  slave.  Then  the 
guardian  of  the  three  minor  brothers  asked  permission 
of  the  court  to  auction  the  remaining  third.  It  seems 
odd  to  think  of  a  person  partly  free  and  partly  a  slave, 
but  it  appears  from  other  documents  that  this  was  not 


220  Bible  and  Spade 

unusual  in  Egypt.  We  have  a  certificate  of  the  eman- 
cipation of  a  third  part  of  a  female  slave,  two-thirds 
of  whom  had  already  been  emancipated.  Here  there  is 
a  suggestion  of  a  little  romance.  The  emancipated 
third  had  belonged  to  two  brothers,  "Achilleus,  aged 
about  twenty  years,  of  middle  height,  fair,  having  a 
long  face  and  a  scar  on  the  middle  of  his  forehead/ ' 
and  Sarapas,  also  of  "  middle  height,  fair,  having  a  long 
face  and  a  scar  on  his  left.  .  .  ."  (By  the  way,  a 
scar  somewhere  on  the  body  is  the  usual  mark  of  identi- 
fication in  these  documents,  very  much  as  we  use 
finger-prints  to-day.)  Now  these  two  brothers  drew 
up  a  deed  in  the  street,  under  the  sanction  of  Zeus, 
Earth  and  Sun,  by  which  in  consideration  of  a  certain 
payment  they  set  free  one-third  of  the  slave  girl,  the 
other  two-thirds  having  already  been  set  free.  The 
person  who  paid  the  money  to  set  free  the  last  third 
of  this  slave  girl,  and  here  is  the  possible  romance, 
was  a  certain  Heraclas,  son  of  Tryphon,  about  thirty- 
one  years  old,  also  of  "middle  height,  fair,  having  a 
long  face  and  a  scar  on  his  right  knee."  Even  the  man 
who  certifies  the  manumission  was  of  "middle  height, 
fair,  having  a  long  face  and  a  scar  upon  one  of  his 
shins." 

It  has  often  been  suggested  that  Saint  Luke,  the 
physician,  was  a  freedman,  and  hence  his  great  interest 
in  the  foreigner,  the  distressed,  and  the  downtrodden. 
In  slave  countries  physicians  were  frequently  freed- 
men,  and  that  was  true  even  in  the  Turkish  empire  of 
the  first  part  of  the  last  century.  In  Roman  times  a 
great   many  professional  men,   skilled  artisans,   and 


New  Testament  Times  221 

others  were  freedmen  who  had  learned  their  profession 
as  slaves.  Here  is  a  document  apprenticing  a  slave 
boy  to  learn  shorthand  writing.  Two  years  it  would 
require  to  learn  this  trade  or  profession,  and  120  silver 
drachmas  was  the  price  to  be  paid  for  teaching  him, 
40  drachmas  in  advance,  40  drachmas  when  he  has 
mastered  the  rudiments,  forty  drachmas  when  he 
"writes  fluently  in  every  respect  and  reads  faultlessly/' 
This  slave  is  not  to  work  on  feast-days.  If,  at  the 
end  of  two  years  he  has  not  learned  the  art  of  short- 
hand and  it  can  be  shown  that  the  reason  is  that  he 
has  failed  to  work  on  other  days  besides  the  feast-days, 
then  he  is  to  continue  his  study  as  many  days  or  months 
after  the  expiration  of  the  two  years  as  he  has  failed 
to  work  during  those  two  years;  very  much  the  way  in 
which  we  keep  boys  in  after  school. 

We  obtain  very  intimate  glimpses  of  domestic  and 
family  life.  Here  is  a  page  from  a  housekeeper's 
day-book  of  the  time  when  our  Lord  was  a  little  boy 
in  Nazareth,  which  shows,  among  others,  these  items: 

Turnips  for  pickling. 

Omelets  for  the  bread. 

Perfume  for  the  despatch  of  the  mummy  of  the  daughter  of 

Phna. 
Wax  and  stylus  for  the  children. 
Pure  bread  for  Prima. 
Pure  bread  for  the  children. 
Beer  for  the  weaver. 
Leeks  for  the  weaver's  breakfast. 
Asparagus  for  the  dinner  of  Antas  when  he  went  to  th©  funeral 

feast  of  Athe. 
To  the  slaves  for  a  cabbage  for  dinner. 


222  Bible  and  Spade 

Milk  for  the  children. 

To  Secundus,  a  cake  for  the  children. 

On  the  birthday  of  Tryphas,  for  garlands. 

Playthings — for  the  children. 

Pomegranates  for  the  children. 

Needle  and  thread. 

A  pigeon  for  the  children. 

Perfume  for  the  mummy  of  the  daughter  of  Pasis. 

On  the  whole,  this  gives  a  very  pretty  picture  of  what 
appears  to  have  been  a  pleasant  household  life.  The 
children  play  an  important  part,  with  their  playthings, 
their  school  material,  their  cakes,  and  other  dainties, 
and  their  pure  bread  and  pure  milk.  Then  we  see  the 
weaver  engaged  to  come  in  and  work  for  the  family, 
and  the  extra  provision  made  for  his  beer  and  break- 
fast. Then  we  have  the  proper  performance  of  neigh- 
borly duties  and  celebration  of  family  festivals.  The 
perfume  for  the  mummy  corresponds,  one  may  say, 
with  the  tokens  of  attention  which  we  give  in  the  shape 
of  flowers  at  funerals  and  the  like;  and  gifts  of  garlands 
on  birthdays  need  no  comment. 

Rather  amusing  is  a  little  fragment  of  another  ac- 
count-book of  about  the  same  date  from  which  we  learn 
what  a  family  had  to  eat  for  dinner  on  three  successive 
days: 

For  dinner  on  the  5th,  a  canopic  liver 
For  dinner  on  the  6th,  10  oysters,  1  lettuce 
For  dinner  on  the  7th,  two  small  loaves,  one  water  bird,  two 
snipe. 

We  even  have  an  invitation  to  a  party  which  reads 
thus:  "The  Decurion  invites  you  to  his  party  on  the 


New  Testament  Times  223 

sixth  day  before  the  calends,  at  eight  o'clock."  Think 
of  a  party  beginning  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
The  latest  hour  at  which  they  began  at  this  time  was 
three  o'clock. 

There  are  a  few  letters  which  reveal  with  great  frank- 
ness that  disregard  of  human  life,  especially  the  life  of 
women,  which  was  one  of  the  curses  and  disgraces  of 
the  heathen  world.  The  writer,  Harion,  had  gone  to 
Alexandria.  From  there  he  writes  back  to  a  woman 
whom  he  calls  "sister,"  the  common  way  of  speaking  to 
a  wife.  With  proper  parental  attention  he  exhorts  her 
to  take  care  of  their  children.  Then  he  speaks  of 
another  child  whose  birth  is  expected:  "If  it  is  a  male, 
let  it  live;  if  a  female,  expose  it."  Such  a  direction 
should  open  the  eyes  of  any  thinking  person  to  the 
wonderful  change  which  Christianity  has  effected  in 
the  condition  of  women  and  children. 

You  will  remember  that  in  his  parables  Jesus  speaks 
of  banks  in  which  one  might  deposit  money  and  re- 
ceive interest  as  part  of  the  every-day  life  of  his  time. 
These  papyri  documents  exhibit  an  amazingly  well- 
developed  banking  system,  letters  of  credit,  exchange, 
and  an  organization  almost  comparable  to  that  of  our 
own  day.  We  have  also  interesting  notices  of  distri- 
bution of  seeds  and  the  like  for  the  promotion  of  agri- 
culture. 

The  New  Testament  introduces  us  frequently  to  a 
much-despised  class,  but  one  much  in  evidence  every- 
where throughout  the  Roman  empire,  viz.,  the  Publi- 
cans. We  meet  with  hosts  of  these  in  our  papyri, 
and  especially  frequent  are  they  in  the  papyri  from 


224  Bible  and  Spade 

the  villages  of  the  Fayum.  The  multiplicity  of  the 
taxes  recorded  helps  us  to  understand  also  why  the 
tax-gatherer  was  so  hated.  We  have  a  poll-tax,  all 
sorts  of  land  taxes,  and  taxes  for  every  conceivable 
industry.  There  are  receipts  for  the  weaving  tax, 
the  mason  tax,  and  the  like.  In  addition  to  the  taxes 
on  land  we  have  a  tax  on  planting,  which  was  levied 
on  trees,  and  on  the  area  of  ground  under  cultivation, 
according  to  the  crop  cultivated;  taxes  on  oil,  beer, 
and  wine;  a  caravan  tax,  regulated  according  to  the 
road  to  be  travelled,  the  number  of  kinds  of  animals  to 
be  used  and  the  loads  they  were  to  carry.  This  was 
especially  to  equip  a  constabulary  to  protect  travellers. 
We  have  a  stamp  tax  on  the  sale  of  objects.  Here  for 
instance  is  a  receipt  for  the  tax  on  the  sale  of  a  cow. 
Here  the  record  of  the  sale  of  "  a  female,  mouse-colored 
donkey,  shedding  its  first  teeth"  for  about  nine  dollars, 
in  the  value  of  our  money  before  the  war.  There  are 
taxes  for  maintaining  a  watch-tower.  Taxes  in  the 
shape  of  a  day's  work  for  the  maintenance  of  dikes, 
and  much  more.  Monopolies  also  were  sold  to  Publi- 
cans who  farmed  them  out.  A  man  named  Sanesneus, 
aged  sixty,  having  a  scar  on  the  left  knee,  who  was 
unable  to  write,  so  that  he  got  a  certain  Castor,  scribe 
of  the  Nome,  to  draw  up  a  deed,  makes  a  bid  for  the 
concession  for  one  year  of  the  making  and  selling  of 
buildings  in  a  certain  village,  with  the  power  to  sublet. 
The  Publican  Heron,  son  of  Heron,  farms  out  a  right 
which  he  has  acquired  in  the  same  way.  We  have 
mention  of  firms  of  these  Publicans,  who  seem  to  do 
a  large  business,  and  we  have  also  evidence  that  they 


New  Testament  Times  225 

were  not  always  incorruptible.  In  one  house  were 
found  fourteen  family  letters  from  a  man  named 
Gemellus,  who  directs,  among  other  things,  that  pres- 
ents be  given  to  certain  officials,  evidently  to  secure 
some  favor  in  the  matter  of  remission  of  taxes.  An- 
other man  instructs  his  correspondent  to  give  at  once 
a  present  to  so  and  so,  who  has  just  been  elected, 
"because  we  can  use  him.,,  We  find  some  evidences 
of  graft  also  in  connection  with  the  inspection  of  temple 
treasuries,  which  were  a  part  of  the  state  administra- 
tion. One  official  writes  warning  another,  who  is 
evidently  a  friend  or  dependent,  that  the  inspector  is 
at  his  place  and  is  shortly  coming  to  the  place  of  this 
other,  but  he  bids  him  not  to  be  troubled,  for  he  will 
fix  it. 

The  first  Christian  century  was  a  wonderful  century, 
in  many  ways  strikingly  like  the  century  just  past, 
a  century  of  enormous  scientific  progress,  a  century  of 
great  unrest,  a  century  of  the  highest  aspirations  and 
the  most  spiritual  expressions  of  religion,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  century  of  all  sorts  of  fads  and  supersti- 
tions, of  belief  and  unbelief,  strangely  mingled  one 
with  another.  Among  these  papyri  are  traces,  some 
very  pathetic,  of  these  superstitions  and  this  religious 
unrest,  petitions  from  those  seeking  guidance  or  divine 
favor  through  oracles,  and  references  to  the  Evil  Eye. 
One  lad,  who  had  been  seeking  counsel  from  the  gods 
in  dreams,  writes  to  his  father:  "I  have  been  deceived 
in  the  gods,  trusting  in  dreams.  All  things  are  false, 
and  your  gods  with  the  rest."  It  was  a  century  of 
wonderful  diffusion  of  education.    Writing  was  ex- 


226  Bible  and  Spade 

tremely  common.  Almost  every  one  seems  to  have 
known  how  to  write  or  read  a  little.  All  happenings 
were  jotted  down,  so  that  it  would  seem  very  likely 
some  began  to  write  the  life  of  Jesus  immediately  after 
the  Resurrection.  On  the  other  hand,  almost  every 
one,  when  he  had  anything  worth  while  to  write,  sought 
the  assistance  of  an  amanuensis,  and  we  have  particu- 
lar evidence  from  these  papyri  of  the  precise  manner 
in  which  Saint  Paul,  for  instance,  dictated  his  letters. 
Further  we  have  learned  the  character  and  the  size 
of  the  sheets  used  for  writing  on,  how  many  went  to  a 
roll,  etc.,  so  that  we  are  now  able  to  say  that  in  his  two 
books  in  the  New  Testament,  the  Gospel  and  Acts, 
Saint  Luke  reached  the  limits  of  possibility;  each  is  as 
large  a  volume  as  one  could  properly  make. 

We  have  one  interesting  little  piece  of  school  work. 
The  Emperor  Hadrian  in  his  last  days  withdrew  from 
public  life,  and  from  his  retirement  he  wrote  to  his 
successor  a  godly  letter  which  was  circulated  through- 
out the  empire  as  a  model  of  virtue  and  set  as  a  copy 
for  the  boys  in  school.  Among  these  papyri  is  preserved 
a  fair  text  of  this  letter  from  the  teacher's  hand,  with 
a  rude  copy  in  the  script  of  a  schoolboy  learning  to 
write. 

But  most  important  for  our  direct  study  of  the  New 
Testament,  although  these  manifold  side-lights  are  of 
the  greatest  importance  in  restoring  the  life  and 
thought  of  that  period,  are  the  Gospels  and  sayings  of 
Jesus,  which  have  been  found.  The  first  of  these 
sayings  to  be  published  was  discovered  in  1897  in 
Oxyrhynchus.    There   were   in   that   fragment   eight 


New  Testament  Times  227 

words  in  all,  which,  according  to  Grenfell  and  Hunt's 
translation  (with  a  few  emendations  from  Evelyn 
White's  recent  work,  The  Sayings  of  Jesus),  read  as 
follows: 

1.  Then  shalt  thou  see  clearly  to  cast  out  the  mote  that  is  in 
thy  brother's  eye.1 

2.  Jesus  saith:  Except  ye  fast  to  the  world,  ye  shall  in  no  wise 
find  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  except  ye  make  the  Sabbath  a 
real  Sabbath,  ye  shall  not  see  the  Father. 

3.  Jesus  saith:  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  world  and  in  the 
flesh  was  I  seen  of  them,  and  I  find  all  men  drunken  and  none 
found  I  athirst  among  them,  and  My  soul  grieveth  over  the  sons 
of  men  because  they  are  blind  in  their  heart  and  see  not  (with 
their  understanding). 

4.  .  .  .    poverty. 

5.  Jesus  saith:  Wherever  there  are  two,  they  are  not  without 
God,  and  wherever  there  is  one  alone,  I  say  I  am  with  him. 
Raise  the  stone  and  there  thou  shalt  find  Me;  cleave  the  wood 
and  there  I  am.1 

6.  Jesus  saith:  A  prophet  is  not  acceptable  in  his  own  country, 
neither  does  the  physician  work  cures  upon  them  that  know 
him.* 

7.  Jesus  saith:  A  city  built  upon  the  top  of  a  high  hill  and  es- 
tablished can  never  fall  nor  be  hid.4 

8.  Jesus  saith:  Thou  nearest  with  one  ear.  .  .  . 

A  second  series,  also  of  eight,  was  found  in  the  same 
place  six  years  later.  In  the  following  translation 
and  restoration  of  these  I  differ  somewhat  from  Gren- 
fell and  Hunt,  and  also  from  Evelyn  White: 

1  So  closely  resembling  Luke  6 :  42,  that  we  might  venture  to 
restore  the  missing  first  part  from  that.    Cf.  also  Matt.  7 : 5. 

*  Resembling  somewhat  elusively  Matt.  18 :  20. 

5  Much  like  Luke  4 :  24.    Cf.  also  Matt.  13 :  57;  Mark  6 : 4. 

*  Resembles  Matt.  5 :  14.    Cf.  also  Matt.  7 :  24,  25. 


228  Bible  and  Spade 

1.  Jesus  saith:  Let  not  him  who  seeks  cease  seeking  until  he 
find,  and  when  he  finds,  he  shall  be  astonished;  astonished  he 
shall  reach  the  Kingdom,  and  having  reached  the  Kingdom  he 
shall  find  rest.1 

This  saying  deals  with  the  attainment  of  the  kingdom 
as  a  result  of  unceasing  search.  The  next  saying  takes 
up  the  question:  "Where  is  the  Kingdom?" 

2.  Jesus  saith:  Ask  now  the  cattle,  and  they  that  draw  you 
shall  say  to  you,  "The  Kingdom  is  in  Heaven."  Ask  the  fowls 
of  the  heaven,  and  they  will  say  that  it  is  under  the  earth.  Go 
down  into  the  deep  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea  will  tell  you  it  is 
not  there.  Verily  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you,  and 
whosoever  knoweth  himself  shall  find  it.2 

That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  to  be  found  by  observation. 
The  search  must  be  turned  within.  There,  within  a 
man,  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  be  found. 

The  third  saying  deals  with  a  question  which  grows 
out  of  this:  "How  is  a  man  to  know  that  he  has  a 
place  in  this  Kingdom?" 

3.  Jesus  saith:  A  man  finding  the  way  shall  not  hesitate  to 
make  careful  inquiry  of  everything  concerning  his  place  (in  the 
Kingdom.  Ye  shall  find)  that  many  first  shall  be  last,  and  the 
last  first,  and  (they  shall  inherit  eternal  life). 

The  fourth  saying  is  parallel  to  Matt.  10 :  26,  Mark 
4:22,  and  Luke  12:2: 

4.  Jesus  saith:  Everything  that  is  not  before  thy  face,  even 
that  which  is  hidden  from  thee,  shall  be  revealed  to  thee.    There 

1  Quoted  twice  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  once  as  from  the 
Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews. 

2  Restored  by  comparison  with  Job  11:7-9,  12:7-9;  Ezra 
38:20. 


New  Testament  Times  229 

is  nothing  hidden  which  shall  not  be  made  plain,  and  buried  which 
shall  not  be  dug  up. 

The  fifth  saying  is  so  broken  that  one  cannot  present 
a  real  translation.  The  Christians  asked  Jesus  a  ques- 
tion with  regard  to  fasting,  also  praying,  the  command- 
ments and  almsgiving.  The  answer  was  presumably 
similar  to  the  second  of  the  sayings  in  the  first  collec- 
tion. Of  the  remaining  sayings  I  do  not  feel  able  to 
make  an  intelligent  restoration. 

Along  with  these  sayings  were  found  fragments  of  a 
papyrus  roll  of  the  nature  of  a  Gospel,  which  Grenfell 
and  Hunt  restore  as  follows: 

(Take  no  thought)  from  morning  until  even  nor  from  evening 
until  morning,  either  for  your  food,  what  ye  shall  eat,  or  for  your 
raiment,  what  ye  shall  put  on.  Ye  are  far  better  than  the  lilies 
which  grow  but  spin  not.  Having  one  garment,  what  do  ye 
(lack)?  Who  could  add  to  your  stature?  He  himself  will 
give  you  your  garment.  His  disciples  say  unto  Him:  When 
wilt  Thou  be  manifested  to  us,  and  when  shall  we  see  Thee? 
He  saith:  When  ye  shall  be  stripped  and  not  be  ashamed.  .  .  . 
He  said,  The  key  of  knowledge  ye  hid;  ye  entered  not  in  your- 
selves and  to  them  that  were  entering  in  ye  opened  not. 

The  passage  is  curiously  familiar  and  yet  different  from 
anything  that  we  have.  It  seems  to  be  in  fact,  a  com- 
bination of  various  passages  or  recollections  of  pas- 
sages.1 It  bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  a  form  of  ex- 
hortation which  used  to  be  more  common  than  it  is  at 
present  and  which  consists  in  a  combination  of  texts 
with  nothing  more  added  than  seems  to  be  necessary 

1  Cf.  Matt.  6 :  25,  27,  28,  31,  33;  Luke  11 :  52,  12 :  22,  23,  25, 
27,  29-31;  John  14:19,20. 


230  Bible  and  Spade 

to  unite  them  or  to  guide  the  thought  supposed  to  be 
expressed  by  them  in  the  direction  the  speaker  or  writer 
wished. 

The  study  of  these  fragments  gives  us  an  idea  of  the 
nature  of  the  collections  to  which  they  belong.  Their 
singular  combination  of  new  and  old,  of  material  with 
which  we  are  familiar  in  our  canonical  Gospels,  with 
slight  variations  and  expansions,  and  occasional  ma- 
terial not  from  the  Gospels  at  all,  but  from  the  Old 
Testament,  or  from  apocalyptical  books.  It  has  been 
suggested  by  New  Testament  scholars  as  distinguished 
as  Harnack  that  we  have  in  some  of  these  parts  of 
the  Gospel  of  the  Egyptians,  of  which  we  read  in  some 
of  the  early  fathers.  More  recently  Evelyn  White 
seems  to  have  shown  that  the  sayings  are  fragments  of 
a  collection  of  life-giving  sayings  from  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  the  Hebrews,  a  work  quoted  by  Clement 
and  others.  There  was  discovered  in  the  decade  preced- 
ing, in  a  cemetery  in  upper  Egypt,  a  parchment  book 
containing  the  Gospel  and  a  revelation  of  Saint  Peter, 
but  those  were  plainly  docetic,  writings  of  that  heresy 
which  denied  the  humanity  of  Jesus  and  consequently 
made  the  crucifixion  and  the  death  a  pretense,  a  heresy 
which  grew  out  of  the  excessive  contemplation  of  the 
divinity  of  the  Lord. 

The  papyri  and  potsherds  found  in  Egypt  have  co- 
operated with  inscriptions  found  in  Asia  Minor  and 
elsewhere  to  determine  certain  chronological  and  his- 
torical questions,  and  especially  to  throw  light  on  va- 
rious statements  in  the  Gospel  according  to  Saint  Luke 
and  the  book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  with  regard 


New  Testament  Times  231 

to  censuses,  titles  of  officials,  names  of  persons  holding 
office  at  certain  places,  and  the  like.  There  are  a 
number  of  those  in  Saint  Luke  which  are  not  mentioned 
nor  confirmed  in  historical  writings  and  records  of  the 
period,  and  on  that  account  Luke  was  until  recently 
charged  with  fabricating  records,  and  of  being  no  true 
historian.  The  discovery  of  various  inscriptions  and 
records  by  Sir  William  Ramsay  and  others,  has  shown 
us  that  in  several  of  these  cases  Saint  Luke  had  ac- 
curate information.  This  has  led  to  a  rehabilitation 
of  Saint  Luke  as  an  historian,  so  that  the  tendency  is  in 
the  cases  which  are  not  yet  confirmed  to  assume  that 
Saint  Luke  is  accurate.  One  of  the  questions  under 
dispute  has  been  Saint  Luke's  statement  of  the  census 
enrolment  caused  to  be  made  in  Judea  by  Augustus. 
We  now  know  that  Augustus  did  cause  such  enrol- 
ments to  be  made  every  fourteen  years,  and  while  we 
have  not  absolute  evidence  of  the  particular  census 
referred  to  in  Luke  2:1,  it  is  generally  presumed 
that  Saint  Luke  was  accurate  in  this  also,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  find  certain  of  the  details  of  his  account 
of  that  census  supported  by  the  order  for  a  similar 
census  issued  by  the  prefect  of  Egypt.  This  document 
reads:  "  Gaius  Vibius  Maximus,  Prefect  of  Egypt,  saith: 
The  enrolment  by  household  being  at  hand,  it  is 
necessary  to  notify  all  who  for  any  cause  soever  are 
outside  their  homes,  to  return  to  their  domestic  hearths 
that  they  may  also  accomplish  the  customary  dispen- 
sation of  enrolment  and  continue  steadfastly  in  the 
husbandry  that  belongeth  to  them." 
In  another  matter  Saint  Luke  has  been  abundantly 


232  Bible  and  Spade 

supported  by  the  evidence  of  the  papyri,  namely,  his 
statement  in  the  preface  to  his  Gospel  that  already  in 
his  time  a  great  number  of  writers  had  written  records 
of  the  life  of  Jesus.  Presumably  the  same  reference 
is  made  by  Saint  John  in  the  twenty-first  chapter, 
where  he  says  that  the  whole  world  could  not  contain 
all  the  sayings  of  Jesus  if  every  one  were  written  down. 
It  is  now  clear  that  almost  from  the  day  of  Jesus'  death 
he  began  to  be  written  about,  and  the  number  of  writ- 
ings about  him  at  a  somewhat  later  date  is  attested  by 
John  21 :  25.  It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  we  have 
recovered  in  these  papyri  some  of  the  actual  sayings 
of  our  Lord;  but  comparison  of  what  has  been  found 
with  what  has  been  handed  down  in  the  canonical 
Gospels  will,  I  think,  satisfy  the  ordinary  reader  that 
however  interesting  papyri  sayings  and  Gospels  may  be 
to  the  curious  inquirer,  our  Gospels  have  skimmed  the 
cream,  and  we  may  be  well  content  that  the  Church 
selected  for  Bible  use  those  four  and  only  those  four. 
The  discoveries  in  Palestine  which  I  recorded  in  my 
last  lecture,  and  the  discoveries  in  Egypt  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking  to-day,  have  introduced  a  new 
realism  into  the  Gospel  story  which  I  felt  most  keenly 
on  my  last  visit  to  the  Holy  Land.  At  Capernaum  I 
could  picture  to  myself,  from  what  had  been  unearthed, 
the  beautiful  synagogue  of  stone  brought  from  a  dis- 
tance, shining  white,  unlike  the  black  stone  of  the 
country,  which  had  been  built  by  the  centurion,  and 
of  which  the  people  of  Capernaum  were  so  proud.  I 
know  now  where  Capernaum  really  was,  where  Beth- 
saida  was,  where  Gennesaret  was.    I  see  the  scenes  as  I 


u 


M    ^ 
2     o 


3       « 


.1  1 


New  Testament  Times  233 

read.  My  mind,  when  I  last  visited  those  places,  was 
no  longer  full  of  questionings  and  doubts,  as  formerly. 
I  could  give  myself  wholly  to  treading  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Jesus. 

The  Gospel  of  Saint  Mark  is  the  one  most  vivid  with 
the  life  of  that  country.  He  who  will  read  Saint 
Mark,  following  his  narrative  up  and  down  in  Peter's 
country,  will,  if  he  is  of  a  sympathetic  nature,  find  him- 
self walking  with  Jesus.  I  think  I  should  call  that 
Gospel  the  "  Impressions  of  Saint  Peter."  He  narrated 
them  in  the  churches  in  Aramaic,  and  Mark,  a  better 
scholar,  recorded  them  in  Greek.  Now  there  is  a  part 
of  Saint  Mark's  Gospel,  6 :  45-8 :  26,  which  Saint  Luke 
did  not  use.  Apparently  he  did  not  have  it.  Saint 
Matthew  used  it.  As  I  walked  up  and  down  that 
country  without  any  prejudgments,  in  fact  without 
any  ideas  on  the  matter,  I  came  to  realize  that  those 
chapters  could  not  have  been  in  the  "Impressions  of 
Saint  Peter."  They  are  physically  impossible.  They 
twist  up  the  line  of  the  narrative.  You  cannot  follow 
from  place  to  place  aright,  and  finally  they  end  where 
they  began.  Further  you  will  observe  that  they  con- 
tain duplicates,  as  of  walking  on  the  water,  and  the 
feeding  of  the  multitude.  Apparently,  later  some  other 
impressions  of  Saint  Peter  from  another  of  his  hearers 
were  inserted  in  Saint  Mark's  original  writing.  They 
seemed  too  precious  to  lose.  They  were  inserted  just 
after  the  feeding  in  Bethsaida,  because  they  also  end 
with  a  scene  in  Bethsaida.  Matthew,  writing  later 
than  Luke,  in  Syria  or  Palestine,  had  a  text  with  these 
additional   recollections  inserted,   valuable   in   them- 


234  Bible  and  Spade 

selves,  but  which  interfere  with  the  line  of  the  narra- 
tive. 

There  is  one  parable  in  Saint  Matthew  which  always 
used  to  bother  me.  It  seemed  to  me  contrary  to  possi- 
bilities, and  I  thought  Saint  Matthew  must  have  re- 
ported it  wrongly.  It  is  the  parable  of  the  vineyard 
leased  by  the  absent  owner  to  husbandmen,  who  ulti- 
mately seize  the  vineyard  for  themselves,  refusing  to 
pay  rent,  treating  with  violence  the  owner's  agents,  and 
finally  killing  his  son  (21 :  33-42).  North  of  the  pres- 
ent walls  of  Jerusalem,  not  far  from  the  Tomb  of  the 
Judges,  are  remains  of  some  stone  buildings  which  I 
found  myself  unable  to  account  for.  They  were  not 
houses  nor  tombs,  and  they  were  unlike  the  usual  vine- 
yard towers.  At  last  a  Jerusalem  friend  threw  light 
on  their  origin  and  purpose,  and  incidentally  also  on 
the  parable.  In  the  troubled  days  of  the  middle  of 
the  last  century  the  gardens  and  vineyards  hereabouts 
became  unsafe.  The  Jerusalem  owners  did  not  dare 
to  summer  there  because  of  the  brigands.  So  they 
hired  men  to  live  there  permanently,  to  protect  them, 
that  they  might  be  able  at  least  to  have  the  fruits  of 
their  gardens,  if  they  might  not  live  there.  But  the 
tenants  had  to  live  in  houses  that  were  forts,  and  the 
garden  walls  became  fortifications.  Then  the  tenants, 
recognizing  the  strength  of  their  position,  joined  to- 
gether and  refused  to  give  the  owners  of  the  gardens 
their  portion  of  the  produce,  and  scenes  were  enacted 
much  like  those  described  in  our  parable.  And  to-day 
the  somewhat  doubtful  title  to  these  lands  goes  back 
to  those  squatting  holders.    The  setting  of  our  Lord's 


House  of  the  wicked  husbandmen. 

A  small  ruin  outside  the  north  wall  of  Jerusalem,  whose  occupants  in  the 

last  century  played  the  part  of  the  wicked  husbandmen  in 

Jesus'  parable,  Matt.  21. 


New  Testament  Times  235 

parable  was  historical  and  notorious  facts  somewhere 
about  Jerusalem  in  his  day  of  the  same  character  as 
those  in  this  region  three-quarters  of  a  century  since; 
and  those  old  towers  became  vivid  illustrations  of  this 
parable  recorded  by  Saint  Matthew. 

On  my  last  visit  it  was  a  perfect  delight  to  go  over 
certain  places  in  Jerusalem,  especially  to  tread  the 
stair  street  of  the  Assumptionists,  probably  the  very 
steps  which  Jesus  trod,  and  to  see  how  all  fits  in  with 
the  scene  of  the  Gospel  narrative.  Saint  Matthew 
tells  us  that  Jesus  told  Peter  and  John  to  go  to  the 
fountain  of  Siloam  and  find  a  certain  man  whom  he 
describes  merely  as  so  and  so.  His  servant  would  be 
there  to  draw  water  and  they  were  to  follow  him  up 
that  stair  street  to  the  top  of  the  hill  where  was  the 
house  of  this  unnamed  friend,  with  whom  Jesus  had 
arranged  to  eat  a  sort  of  pro-passover  supper.  You 
see  from  this  story  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  how  Jesus 
really  was  at  home  in  Jerusalem,  how  he  must  have 
been  there  earlier  in  his  ministry,  as  Saint  John  tells 
us  in  his  Gospel  that  he  was,  otherwise  he  would  have 
had  no  such  Jerusalem  friends.  Saint  Mark  omitted 
all  that  early  Jerusalem  ministry.  Peter  had  not  been 
with  Jesus  on  those  early  visits  to  Jerusalem.  Peter's 
impressions  were  only  concerned  with  Galilee.  And 
Matthew  and  Luke,  following  Mark,  omitted  it  also. 
You  do,  however,  find  glimpses  of  that  earlier  Jerusalem 
ministry  of  Jesus  in  Saint  Luke,  chiefly  contained  in 
the  somewhat  inchoate  mass  of  material  peculiar  to 
the  third  Gospel  which  Saint  Luke  lumps  together 
after  his  account  of  the  Galilean  ministry  and  before 


236  Bible  and  Spade 

his  story  of  the  last  Passover  and  the  Passion.  Such 
a  glimpse  we  have  in  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan, 
which  could  only  have  been  told  at  Jerusalem.  Living 
and  wandering  in  Jerusalem  such  little  touches  came 
home  to  me. 

I  spoke  in  my  last  lecture  of  the  gambling  board  of 
the  Prsetorium.  That  brought  before  my  mind  most 
vividly  the  character  of  those  soldiers  to  whom  Jesus 
was  turned  over  by  Pilate,  for  it  is  the  little  things  like 
that  which  make  things  live  before  you. 

I  have  spoken  already  of  the  Place  of  the  Skull  and 
of  the  Tomb.  Let  me  in  conclusion  tell  something 
which  came  to  me  on  my  last  visit,  which  I  think  you 
will  find  very  real,  and  which  has  never  before  been 
noticed  or  published  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge. 
The  eye-witness  touches  here  and  there  in  Saint  John's 
Gospel  have  been  noticed  by  many,  and  especially 
they  have  been  gathered  and  effectively  set  forth  by 
Doctor  Sanday.  Against  my  former  prejudgment  I 
have  been  compelled,  especially  by  my  last  journey  to 
the  Holy  Land,  to  realize  from  this  eye-witness  testi- 
mony, as  it  were,  that  Saint  John's  Gospel  was  really 
written  by  an  eye-witness,  the  beloved  Apostle.  I  felt 
that  sense  of  the  eye-witness  narrative  keenly  in  the 
story  of  the  Samaritan  woman  at  Jacob's  well,  more 
keenly  still  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  new  point  to  which  I 
wish  to  call  your  attention  is  from  Jerusalem.  You  will 
remember  that  at  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  chapter, 
in  that  upper  room  in  the  house  at  the  top  of  and  be- 
yond that  stair  street  of  which  I  have  spoken,  Jesus, 
having  finished  his  discourse  to  his  apostles,  says: 


New  Testament  Times  237 

"Arise,  let  us  go  hence."  The  latest  commentary 
which  I  have  consulted  says  that  "He  evidently  did 
not  go  out,  because  the  discourse  continued  without 
interruption." 

The  following,  fifteenth  chapter  begins:  "I  am  the 
Vine,  ye  are  the  branches."  Now  it  has  been  borne 
home  to  me  from  many  things  that  Jesus'  parables 
are  alive  with  their  surroundings.  I  spoke  a  moment 
ago  of  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  Take 
Saint  Luke's  account  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  his 
Gospel  of  the  dinner-party  to  which  Jesus  was  in- 
vited on  the  Sabbath,  at  which  he  told  the  story  of 
the  man  that  made  a  great  supper  and  invited  many. 
You  can  follow  the  acts  of  the  guests  and  their  con- 
versation in  that  chapter  from  Jesus'  sayings,  each 
one  of  which,  including  the  final  parable,  is  based  on 
the  acts  of  the  host  or  his  guests,  or  drawn  out  by  their 
utterances.  Apply  this  principle  to  the  occurrences 
and  utterances  of  that  last  evening  as  recorded  by 
Saint  John. 

It  is  almost  a  mile's  walk  from  the  house  of  the  Last 
Supper — down  the  stair  street,  past  the  fountain  of 
Siloam,  out  of  the  water  gate,  turning  to  the  left  up 
the  valley  of  the  Kidron,  past  the  priestly  tombs, 
under  the  great  mass  of  the  temple — to  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane.  They  walked  between  gardens,  where 
just  at  that  time,  according  to  custom,  the  vines  were 
being  trimmed,  the  cuttings  from  which  had  been 
thrown  into  the  street  to  wither.  You  have  in  the 
account  of  Jesus'  discourse  on  the  way  one  of  those 
unconscious  eye-witness  pictures  of  the  surroundings; 


238  Bible  and  Spade 

how,  as  they  walked  down  that  street,  they  trod  on 
these  withering  vine  branches,  and  saw  the  vine  stocks 
from  which  they  had  been  cut.  It  was  this  which  sug- 
gested and  from  which  Jesus  took  the  striking  and  vivid 
figures  for  the  parable  of  the  vine. 

And  farther;  as  they  passed  up  the  Kidron  valley, 
and  stood  beneath  that  great  mass  of  the  temple, 
just  before  they  entered  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane, 
"lifting  up  his  eyes,,,  as  it  says  at  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  chapter,  Jesus  uttered  what  every  com- 
mentator has  called  the  "High  Priest  Prayer,"  the 
prayer  which  imagines  him  standing  as  priest  on  the 
great  day  of  atonement  before  the  Lord  in  the  inmost 
sanctuary.  Who  could  have  invented  this;  who  but 
an  eye-witness  have  reported  it? 

I  speak  as  an  archaeologist,  to  whom  these  objective 
things  appeal  with  telling  force  because  of  my  practical 
experience.  Years  ago,  when  I  was  excavating  Nippur, 
book  scholars  had  fixed  the  date  of  the  introduction 
of  the  camel,  from  the  mention  of  that  animal  found 
in  various  writings,  at  about  the  close  of  the  third 
pre-Christian  millennium.  I  found  inscribed  stones  at 
Nippur,  Ur,  and  elsewhere  which  I  could  not  trans- 
port on  horses,  donkeys,  or  mules.  My  men  pointed 
out  that  those  were  cut  for  camel  burdens.  They  did 
not  need  to  be  told;  they  needed  no  proof  of  written 
records;  they  knew  from  their  experience  in  loading 
beasts  that  we  had  in  each  of  those  stones  exactly  a 
half  load  of  a  camel,  and  that  a  camel  and  only  a  camel 
could  carry  those  loads.  On  the  basis  of  that  I  stated 
with  confidence,  as  an  axiom,  that  the  camel  was  known 


New  Testament  Times  239 

as  a  beast  of  burden  at  the  time  those  stones  were  cut 
and  the  inscriptions  put  on  their  faces,  some  hundreds 
of  years  before  the  date  theretofore  ascribed  to  the 
camel.  I  say  with  equal  confidence  in  regard  to  that 
parable  of  the  vine  and  the  "  High  Priest  Prayer/'  that 
the  witness  which  they  bear  is  clear  and  incontro- 
vertible, of  the  passage  of  Jesus  with  his  disciples  down 
that  stair  street  between  the  villas  and  the  gardens, 
up  that  valley,  he  talking  to  them  as  they  walked,  until 
at  last  they  entered  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  where 
he  was  to  be  betrayed  to  death  for  our  sins.  And,  it 
seems  to  me  clear  that  he  who  tells  the  story  was 
present  on  that  night. 


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